


On Rainy Days

by SEpupppupp (ForNought)



Category: Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Bad Flirting, Getting Together, Hoeseung has quite a few, Kenta has no friends, Kenta pretends to be inconvenienced but Hoeseung a lot, M/M, Pining, alcohol mention, an au where Kenta's life is horrible, sex mention, they even bump uglies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-01 16:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11489883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/SEpupppupp
Summary: Takada Kenta is used to the rhythm of his life: napping during his nighttime shifts at the convenience store, messing up orders during his shifts at the cafe, working the occasional function at a hotel or bar, and failing dance auditions.Kenta is entirely unused to someone extending a hand of friendship as persistently as Hoeseung.





	On Rainy Days

**Author's Note:**

> The fact that hardly anyone found ["It feels good that you are crying because of me"](https://youtu.be/mgc8_VLjW70?t=1m) shipworthy caught me off guard too but never accept rejection as failure

Kenta didn’t like it very much when it rained heavily on the nights he had to work at the convenience store. Customers were only sporadic during the night, even less so during heavy rain, and Kenta usually liked to take the chance to rest. He was too tired from juggling three part-time jobs and the occasional dance audition.

The whole reason he had moved to Korea was because he wanted to dance here. He often thought about returning to his family in Japan despite telling his sisters and his mum that he was having so much fun. He hardly danced at all these days, not even for fun, because he was so dog-tired from trying to scrape together enough money to continue to live. If he was going to suffer like this, the least he could do was get paid for some snatched moments of rest.

It was too difficult to do so when it rained this heavily. Whenever it rained and Kenta was working nights at the convenience store, it felt like a waste. There were no customers to disturb him, or threaten to report him to managers, but the thickening patter of rain against the front windows was enough to wake him from whatever wisps of dreams he almost caught.

Right now, Kenta couldn’t even close his eyes and lie to himself about the rain. There was a customer who was very loudly taking his time over choosing snacks. Kenta couldn’t even understand what he was saying, and he wouldn’t have cared if he could, but he was continuously hearing brand names and different items being called out.

Kenta wasn’t about to respond. He was trying to sleep. Or he was trying to pretend to sleep.

Maybe he should respond. It would be far easier to pretend to sleep if the customer wasn’t dripping water all over the floor.

“Customer, rather than those snacks, I would recommend an umbrella. The weather isn’t very nice.”

The customer stood up straight, smiling brightly as he made his way to the counter. “I think the weather is nice. The rain is a beautiful thing and when it falls…”

Kenta stopped trying to listen. He lost the will to want to listen when this man said that he liked the rain. He wasn’t able to understand most of it anyway. The man was talking in a with nostalgia heavy in his voice and Kenta wondered what was so interesting that this man, hair and shoulders drenched and arms piled high with packets of snacks, ramen and cans of beer, could keep talking.

Kenta tried a different tack.

“Customer, is this everything for today?” He was aware that he had interrupted, but he supposed that it didn’t matter so much when he didn’t know what he had interrupted.

“Oh, that’s a nice accent.”

This wasn’t going very well.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Kenta said as he started taking products from the man’s arms and scanning them.

“Where are you from? Japan?” The customer asked.

“Please don’t ask me about ninjas,” Kenta sighed as he fetched a carrier bag. The customer looked nonplussed but his face quickly broke into a grin.

“Do people often ask you about ninjas?”

Kenta wished he hadn’t said anything. He should have kept his mouth shut and got through the transaction with the barest modicum of manners. He wanted to sleep but he could at least be polite enough to customers that they left with a good impression and returned. Kenta supposed that deep down he must not have wanted this particular customer to return.

“Sometimes,” Kenta said casually. “Kids do. And other annoying people.”

The man laughed. “Am I an annoying person? Or am I a kid? I couldn’t help but notice you talking down to me just now.”

Kenta blinked slowly at the man before giving an exaggerated bow. “Mr. Customer, please forgive my awful attitude.”

The customer laughed again, loud and full, loud enough that Kenta didn’t hear the rain for a few moments – though it was not as though he could sleep through that sound either.

“That’s cute,” The man grinned. “How could I not forgive you, Mr. Shopkeeper, when you use such a pretty way of speaking?”

Kenta didn’t like this man very much. He was already too tired after working at the café from the early morning, and by the time he finished this shift at the convenience store he would have been awake for over twenty-four hours. His patience was already running out before this man started making fun of him.

It served him right for thinking not-so-complimentary things about a person who had originally been minding their own business.

“It will be thirty-four thousand and eight-hundred won, please,” Kenta said.

The man immediately started picking through his wallet for the exact change. “I bought a lot, right? Most of it is for me, but I really upset my mum and came to buy her favourite chocolate. When she eats it, her heart will be full of love for me again.”

“Is that so?” Kenta said as he handed over the receipt.

“It’s true,” The man confirmed. He lifted the carrier bag from the counter, but he wasn’t moving just yet. “Her whole face lights up, and she calls me her precious son and pinches my cheeks! Ah, sorry.”

Kenta had been wondering what the man’s hand had been doing as it stretched across the counter in the air. He was thankful that the customer didn’t pinch his cheeks. He would have been sacked after trying to fight the customer, and struggle to find more work to make up the hours, and get evicted from his flat because he could barely afford it as things were, and then he would have to beg his parents to buy him a plane ticket home, and return to his parents’ house and tell them the truth about how difficult and miserable things were in Korea.

The customer at least had the decency to look embarrassed. He put his bag on the counter once more and handed over a bar of chocolate.

“Did you want a refund?” Kenta asked. The man shook his head quickly.

“That isn’t it,” He said, waving the bar more insistently at Kenta. “This is for you. It must be dull at this time of night. It isn’t as expensive as my mum’s favourite chocolate, but it is my favourite.”

“I can’t accept this,” Kenta said. He wondered whether this was some strange, round-about apology for the almost pinched cheeks.

“Take it, please. I feel like we are friends now,” The man said flippantly. “I force all of my friends to eat this.”

The man was all-but prodding Kenta with the chocolate bar at this point so it would have been more of an issue not to accept it. He took the chocolate and quietly thanked the man who smiled even more widely. Kenta didn’t push the issue about not knowing each other’s names despite apparently being friends.  

“Stay safe,” Kenta said with a slight bow. The man seemed to get the message and took a step backwards. He didn’t get very far. He turned back to look at Kenta.

“Shouldn’t it be ‘leave well’?”

Kenta thought it hardly mattered at this time of night. He corrected himself nonetheless and tried not to think too much about the customer said ‘good night’ before he ducked out into the rain.

The rain sounded even heavier than before and Kenta hoped that the man didn’t live too far away. It would be a shame for him to get wetter in the middle of night and he had a distance to go. But it sounded as though he lived with his parents and they could coddle and baby him if he got too sick.

Kenta didn’t have another customer for the rest of the night and the rain didn’t let up. He couldn’t even pretend to sleep while he waited for the hours to tick down until he could go home and sleep for the whole day. He counted himself lucky that it was a day off from all three of his jobs. He thought he might as well treat himself.

The man had given him dark chocolate. It was bitter, but Kenta couldn’t stop chasing more of the bitterness to melt on his tongue.

 

*

 

The next time Kenta saw the customer it wasn’t raining. It also wasn’t at the convenience store. When he caught himself thinking of the man in specifics like that, like he knew him at all and had been looking out for him, he chastised himself quickly. He tried to screw his head on properly but it clearly hadn’t worked. Chagrin was leaking all over his face and of course the customer had to mention their connection.

“Oh, have you changed jobs already?”

Kenta had been hoping that the customer wouldn’t recognise him in a different uniform in the light of a different day. His hopes were all but shattered when he went to the customer’s table to take his order. The woman sitting across from the customer was soft with middle-age and years of smiles had been etched into the lines of her face. The smile she was wearing as she peered up at Kenta with keen interest was full of intrigue.

“Son, do you two know each other? Are you friends?” She asked warmly. The customer nodded rapidly and his eyes were shining crescents as he looked between Kenta and the woman who was presumably his mother.

“That’s right, we are friends!” He confirmed. Kenta would beg to differ but remembered regretting how impolite he had been to the customer the first time they met. He kept his mouth shut and hoped that the customer’s compact mouth wouldn’t expand to extremes and tell all sorts of tales. “Did you leave the convenience store?”

“I still work there,” Kenta said.

“You have two jobs? You should have told me!”

“Hoeseung, you don’t know even this much about your friend?” The woman asked. They looked alike when they smiled in the most curious of ways. Kenta didn’t want to define the smile as sly when these people were strangers, but there was something about seeing these people smile that unsettled Kenta. He was probably just being paranoid that he was going to get caught in a lie that he wasn’t even telling.

The customer – Hoeseung, Kenta would regretfully remember this name no matter how hard he tried to scrub it from the folds of his brain – nodded at his mum with a more saccharine version of the smile. It was still sly, but there was innocence in the size of his teeth and the crinkle of his eyes. “That’s right, Mum. I am not a very good friend. My friend and I will have to work hard to meet up more often.”

Kenta only smiled along as well as he could. This innocent smile was almost worse than the outright slyness. At least when Hoeseung’s face was sly, Kenta could try to convince himself that he disliked the man. The more relaxed smile he was showing to his mum had Kenta anticipating something more unpleasant.  

“Hoeseung-ssi,” Kenta said, hating how easy it felt to say an unfamiliar name, hating even more how Hoeseung’s smile sharpened at the sound, “What did you want to order? I see that I must be interrupting your day.”

“How formal,” Hoeseung said with mock surprise. It was not at all formal considering the situation. They didn’t know each other and using a stranger’s name when they would likely remain strangers was oddly over-familiar. Kenta said nothing and waited to see what a sly man would do. They weren’t really friends and Hoeseung didn’t even know Kenta’s name. In normal circumstances, that was. Of course both of the jobs Hoeseung had seen Kenta at required he wear name badges. Customer service was like that but it still didn’t make it easier for Kenta to hear his name in the mouths of strangers. “Do you want me to call you ‘Kenta-ssi’, like we are strangers again?”

They were strangers. They had only met once before during the hours that often weren’t worth counting. It was odd to be continuing this lie but now it would be even more odd to stop the lie now.

“You can call me whatever you would like to,” Kenta said. As soon as he had said the words he knew he would live to regret them. There was a glimmer of something even more cunning than before in Hoeseung’s eyes. 

“I definitely will, Kenta,” Hoeseung said. It still prickled to hear his name in Hoeseung’s mouth but Kenta tried not to react too obviously. He smiled pleasantly and waited for the order to come.

It was difficult to tell whether Kenta was avoiding their table or not afterwards. He found himself catching Hoeseung’s eye far too often to be accidental, even when he had himself convinced that he was occupied with other tasks and other customers.

 

*

 

Dancing was the reason Kenta came to Korea. He had fallen in love with the language of his body in Japan and after happening across a music video online he had fallen in love with even flashier types of dancing. It was all but cemented for him when he managed to convince a friend to sneak into Tokyo to watch a concert at the Tokyo Dome and the sounds and the screams and the costumes that helped the dancers bring their stories to life stole Kenta’s heart.

It was nice to remember things that way and neglect the more present parts of his mind which reminded him what a naïve fool he truly was.

Kenta didn’t want to burden his family too much and saved up all that he could while asking for his parents to gift him finds for his dream on birthdays. He could barely afford to get to Seoul and once here, it became apparent that he couldn’t afford to live here either. So he had to work. And work. And work.

Between the three jobs that paid for Kenta’s minimalistic lifestyle there was hardly a minute for Kenta to do what he loved. Instead of sleeping, he occasionally found himself creating choreography and instead of eating he found himself rushing to auditions.

Kenta was too tired. He used to think that loving dance made him practice until he was skilled. These days he hadn’t passed a single audition. That was not the result of a skilled dancer. Disappointed and exhausted, Kenta found himself barely able to keep his eyes open as he clung to the rail while riding the subway home.

Exhaustion had dulled Kenta’s senses as much as his dreams had. That was the only reason he could think of that would explain how successfully Hoeseung sneaked up on him.

“Do you work here too?”

“Ah, suddenly!”

Kenta just about had a heart attack right then and there. He was still clutching at his chest when he turned to see who thought it sensible to talk right into his ear. It was too late to try to dampen his reaction now that Hoeseung had seen how startled he was.

“That was really cute,” Hoeseung grinned. He reached up to hold the rail, his hand just a breath above Kenta’s on the metal.

“What was cute?”

“You,” Hoeseung said. Kenta looked around and hoped that the other passengers were too tired to listen to Hoeseung make fun of him like this. He turned away, just slightly, and pulled his bag strap more securely onto his shoulder.

“I am very tired, Hoeseung-ssi.” Kenta was always tired, and maybe the two times they had met previously were enough for Hoeseung to expect as much. He leaned a bit closer and tapped at his shoulder. Kenta hesitated for a moment before he mirrored the action and asked, “What does this mean?”

Hoeseung didn’t look so calculating when he smiled this time. He tapped his shoulder again. “You should put your head here.”

As half-asleep as he was, Kenta scoffed at that. He could recognise somebody saying something so blatantly stupid, regardless of the language. But he had to turn away completely. He knew that what Hoeseung was saying silly, but he wasn’t certain that he was truly understanding the way things were.

Kenta didn’t have time for a social life. There were people he often saw at auditions who seemed to take pity on him and let him know when other auditions were coming up, but they weren’t anything like friends. Kenta only knew their names and that they were more successful than he was. There were colleagues who exchanged greetings with him, but many of them came and went, flitting right through Kenta’s life. Kenta didn’t have friends and he didn’t have any other sorts of relationships of notable permanence, but he thought that just maybe he could still recognise this.   

He hoped that he was being big-headed, desperate for attention and an ego-boost. The alternative to Kenta being fantastical was something he was too stupid to not hope for.

It was stupid to even give it too much thought but it would be even more stupid to let Hoeseung know that the thought was in his head. They were only strangers who happened to bump into each other from time to time. Kenta hadn’t allowed himself proper friendship before and now he was uselessly mistaking kindness for sillier things.

“Are you no longer tired?” Hoeseung asked, his voice in Kenta’s ear once more. He hoped he successfully repressed his shudder but there was no way he would turn around to verify his efforts.

“I don’t need your soldier.”

“Shoulder.”

“I know.”

Hoeseung sighed. “How will you make it home if you are like this?”

“I don’t have very far to go,” Kenta said.

“Oh, me too!” Hoeseung said. “How fortuitous.”

Kenta didn’t say anything to that. He stood up a bit straighter and tried not to rub at his eyes. He wasn’t tired. He was drifting out of this conversation by choice, not because he was sleepy and uncertain. Hoeseung had clearly been expecting something from that.

“Lucky,” Hoeseung said quietly. “It is lucky that we live close together.”

Kenta wasn’t so sure about that. It would be luckier if they didn’t live near each other. There was a chance that they didn’t. Kenta glanced outside the window. He would be alighting at the next stop and there was no guarantee that Hoeseung’s destination was the same. That truly would be lucky, to not be reminded that he had to pass through the same subway station as Hoeseung. It would be truly lucky if Hoeseung’s stop was one of two after Kenta’s and he didn’t have to walk around his neighbourhood hoping that they would happen upon each other.

The announcement came through the speakers to announce the next stop.

“This is my stop,” Kenta said quietly. Before he could even offer any politeness as he departed, he noticed how Hoeseung was rolling his lips between his teeth. His cheeks dimpled. Kenta looked away. His eyes were too close to Hoeseung’s mouth which he should have known not to look at. Not looking at Hoeseung’s mouth, and pretending not to listen, didn’t stop Kenta from hearing the words.

“Me too. This is my stop too.”

Kenta had already known that he wasn’t a lucky person.

When they both alighted the subway car, Kenta hoped to be able to lose Hoeseung. Kenta knew that he wasn’t lucky, that he shouldn’t bother hoping for anything. Hoeseung was glued to Kenta’s side as they climbed the stairs, not even talking or paying him any particular attention. If hoping for Hoeseung to leave him alone didn’t work, at least Kenta could be glad that hoping for other things would be equally useless.

When they exited the station, the breeze that greeted them was a bracing one. The weather had been warmer earlier in the day, and maybe it felt even cooler now after being underground with the heat of people and machines in the air. Kenta pulled at his jacket against the drop in temperature.

“Are you cold? Do you need a jacket?”

Kenta gave Hoeseung a pointed look. Hoeseung began to gesture at his own jacket and mimed taking it off.

“Do you want my jacket?”

“I already have a jacket,” Kenta said flatly. He pulled at the collar of his jacket to illustrate his point.

“You’re right,” Hoeseung agreed mildly. He didn’t seem to care for the conversation, or there was a misunderstanding of some sort, because he took off his jacket and held it out to Kenta. “But my jacket is better.”

Kenta tried to refuse, not quite sure why Hoeseung was so insistent about giving away his jacket. Somehow, because Hoeseung wouldn’t let the point go and people were still turning to look as they passed, Kenta agreed to a swap. The two of them were similar in height, so it was not until Kenta’s bag was on the floor and his own light jacket was in his hands that he considered that there might be a size issue.

They were near enough the same height but Hoeseung was much broader than Kenta. The implications of that pushed in from the fringes of Kenta’s mind and he tried to ignore them in favour of attempting to point out the issue. He stumbled over his words for a moment, tugging his jacket back out of Hoeseung’s grasp when he realised the swap was going ahead as though the issue was negligible.

“We shouldn’t swap,” Kenta finally said. Hoeseung tilted his head before his smile turned sly.

“Why? Is your jacket expensive? Do you think I won’t give it back?”

“That isn’t it.”

“Do you think my jacket smells?”

“That isn’t it either,” Kenta muttered. He didn’t want things like this being brought to his attention. He didn’t think that Hoeseung’s jacket smelled bad, but there was the fact that it would smell of _something_ and there was no doubt that Kenta would like that _something_ too much. He hadn’t even considered it before.

“Ah, that must be it then,” Hoeseung said, acting as though an idea had only just occured to him despite Kenta seeing the change in his expression when he already thought of it. “I’m fatter than you and I will rip your jacket.”

“No, Hoeseung-ssi!” Hoeseung’s expression was downcast, and Kenta knew it was pretence, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to change the reaction. He shoved his jacket towards Hoeseung. “You aren’t fat.”

“Saying that now? When you have already been so boastful about being thin?”

“That’s not true!”

“So now I’m a liar too?” Hoeseung asked. “A fat liar?”

Kenta managed to get Hoeseung’s expression to change, his eyes wide and the smile fading from his lips. To do that Kenta had snatched Hoeseung’s jacket out of his hands and manhandled him into the one he had been reluctant to take off in the first place.

Hoeseung smiled as he watched Kenta fasten the zip, but there was a stiffness in his face.

Kenta hoped his own expression was more natural, but he should already have known better than to try to hope for things. Hoeseung wasn’t fat, at all, but the broadness that Kenta had already noticed was accentuated. The jacket was stretched across Hoeseung’s chest in a way that had Kenta feeling the same strain of the fabric in his throat.

Kenta coughed lightly. Said, “It suits you.”

“Thank you,” Hoeseung replied. He drew his knuckle along Kenta’s forearm, a blush of warmth against the goosebumps that had sprung on Kenta’s skin from the cold and nothing else. “Will you wear my jacket now?”

Kenta was quick about pulling on Hoeseung’s jacket. It was warmer than his own jacket and the lining was soft. Kenta didn’t want to breathe too deeply. He could feel his tiredness settling more heavily into his bones with the comfort of Hoeseung’s jacket. He could fall asleep standing here on the street. Today was getting to be too much.

“Is that better?”

Kenta nodded. “It is warm.”

“Good,” Hoeseung said. He seemed to have settled because his smile had returned. There was less of the usual impishness but Kenta still felt as though there wasn’t enough room inside his skin. Hoeseung patted his pockets and held out Kenta’s phone. “How could you forget this?”

Kenta would like to know that too. He accepted his phone and hesitated for a moment. And the moment passed before Kenta could wonder about whether something more significant could occur. Hoeseung lifted Kenta’s bag and passed it to him. Kenta thanked him and tried to remember what this was. An overzealous stranger who must have been like this with everybody.

They lived closer together than Kenta thought. He was almost home by the time Hoeseung went his separate way. He had worried – hoped? He had to stop with this – that Hoeseung was following him home, but at the top of his street Hoeseung casually announced that he had to continue on a different path.

Kenta wished him a good night and only thought about how they would swap their jackets back over when he was at home.

 

*

 

It was raining.

It was night-time.

Hoeseung was back at the convenience store.

Kenta couldn’t help himself, his eyes following the back of Hoeseung’s head as he browsed the shelves. Even when serving the elderly lady who was equally as annoying as Hoeseung but didn’t attach herself to the more fragile parts of Kenta’s brain, he found himself very distracted.

When they were alone, Hoeseung strolled right up the counter empty-handed.

“Hello, Hoeseung-ssi,” Kenta said. He was sure he was calm and casual and seemed nothing at all like the sort of person whose mind was unwinding.

“Have you been well?” Hoeseung asked. Kenta was wondering about that too. He returned the greeting in the polite way. He said he was fine even though he wasn’t sure about the statement as a fact and smiled when Hoeseung answered the same way.

Kenta was fine. He was fine. Hoeseung wearing Kenta’s jacket and letting the material stretch across the expanse of his shoulders changed nothing. Kenta was fine.

“Did you come for your jacket?” Kenta asked. He had taken to keeping it in his bag in case he encountered Hoeseung. He had washed it and resisted the near constant urge to try it on again just to see if it felt the same as the first time he had worn it. The first and only time. It might have been different for Hoeseung.

“You’re ready to swap back already? But I am having fun like this. You said your jacket suited me,” Hoeseung said. He leaned across the counter and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Were you lying? Do I look bad?”

Kenta shook his head quickly. His eyes caught on Hoeseung’s damp hair and the droplets clinging to his temples. “You look good. It suits you really well.”

“Good,” Said Hoeseung, standing up straighter.

He was smiling again, the dimples in his cheeks not doing anything at all to Kenta’s chest.  

“Can I keep your jacket for a bit longer?”

Kenta nodded. At least after hearing that he could admit that he wanted to keep Hoeseung’s jacket for a bit longer too. It was sneaky and strange and he wished that he didn’t think this way, but he couldn’t help it. He tried hard not to dwell on these things. He could at least reward himself by using the reasoning as others to justify himself.

“Do you still not use an umbrella?” Kenta asked awkwardly.

“Why would I?”

“It’s raining.”

“It is better like this,” Hoeseung said cryptically. He looked hesitant for a moment, his smile smaller than before. “Isn’t it good now that I have your jacket?”

Kenta’s jacket didn’t have a hood so he really wondered what was good for Hoeseung. He didn’t know what to say so he kept his mouth shut. He often didn’t know what to say so he was surprised by the next words out of Hoeseung’s mouth.

“Kenta…ssi. Do you like talking to me?” Hoeseung asked.

It was hard to say. Kenta found himself hoping to meet Hoeseung. He almost craved excuses to spend time awkwardly standing before him and not knowing why their interactions felt so inadequate. He didn’t enjoy the stilted conversations and the uncertainty behind each attempt to say the right thing. Kenta was the one who was lacking. Talking was difficult. He liked being around Hoeseung. He liked Hoeseung.

“Yes. I like talking to you, Hoeseung-ssi.”

“You like talking to me?” Hoeseung repeated, his dimples recessing with the teasing lilt of his voice. “You like it? Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“I like it too,” Hoeseung said, voice serious. “Sometimes I want to talk to you even when I can’t see you. Do you understand?”

Kenta hoped he understood. A small part of him wondered what Hoeseung meant by the times that they couldn’t see each other. He wouldn’t like it much if Hoeseung revealed himself to be a spirit burdened with regrets of his past life that only ever appeared before Kenta when it rained during the small hours of the morning. But that wouldn’t make sense. Kenta had seen Hoeseung during the daytime and when the air was fresh and bit at his nose but the scent of rain was merely a distant memory.

Kenta nodded. Because he hoped he understood. He was still hoping for things and maybe this would be the first time he would be allowed to hope for something and get something close to what he wanted.

“Good. So you will give me your phone number?”

Kenta didn’t know why he hesitated. Of course that was what he wanted to do. He wanted much more than just to have Hoeseung’s phone number but it was far too early to start actively projecting his follies onto a person who had only ever been kind to him.

“You don’t want to?” Hoeseung asked, much too quickly. Kenta quickly had to shake his head.

“I do. I will. Pass me your phone. Please.”

The smile was back and it was all Kenta could do to not look anywhere near Hoeseung’s face as he accepted the unlocked phone and typed in his number. He typed his name in and saved the contact. He handed it back to Hoeseung. His face was hurting. He was smiling too much.

“Takada Kenta-ssi,” Hoeseung read. “Still so formal. I will make you open your heart to my friendship soon.”

Kenta didn’t mention the fact that his heart was already open. Wide open. His heart was already begging for whatever friendship Hoeseung saw fit to fire its way.

Hoeseung brought his phone up to his ear. Kenta looked away. He had absolutely no interest in who Hoeseung was calling at a time like this.

“You’re not going to answer?”

Kenta was completely interested in who Hoeseung was calling at a time like this.

“I don’t have my phone while I am working.”

“Oh, how diligent,” Hoeseung said with a grin, still holding the phone to his ear. “I should have expected as much, Takada Kenta-ssi.”

“Thank you,” Kenta said.

“Don’t forget to message me when you receive this message,” Hoeseung said. “I will keep calling you until you send me a message. I am good at hiding my phone at work.”

“Pardon?”

Hoeseung pulled his phone away from his ear and smiled. “I left a message. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t forget.”

“Don’t forget. I mean it!” Hoeseung said affecting a sterner tone. Kenta nodded and watched Hoeseung leave, dashing out into the rain. Wearing Kenta’s jacket.

 

*

 

Kenta didn’t forget to message Hoeseung.

He forgot to pretend that he had other things to think about.

He had shelves to stack and stock to rotate and signage to replace but all he could think about was messaging Hoeseung. He wanted to sneak into the back room and fetch his phone, stash it in his apron and keep sending covert messages and smiling about the replies with things that only Hoeseung would say to him.

Kenta didn’t get his phone. He left it in his bag on top of Hoeseung’s jacket. He remained positively bored for the rest of his shift and felt proud of his self-control.

Kenta became much less proud of his self-control in the subsequent days.

Sleep was precious. Kenta often used up those precious of moments of sleep doing other things, dancing and wishing it was what he was destined for. The sleep that Kenta did catch didn’t last for very long. With Hoeseung to talk to at all hours, the sleep was as shallow as it was short.

There was always a reply to read and something that he desperately needed to know even though he pretended otherwise.

Kenta wanted to know the endings to the tales of Hoeseung’s co-workers and family. Or anything else Hoeseung said. Not even stories, sometimes just things people had said to him and he had decided to share with Kenta. Things that Hoeseung said to other people that he felt the need to relay to Kenta for no reason at all.

Things that kept Kenta awake when he was half-dead and drained and begging his brain to slow down and leave his eyes closed.

Kenta didn’t know what it meant. Why Hoeseung said it at all.

_Sohee said she is glad that I don’t like women because she is scared of how many of her friends’ hearts I would break._

Kenta had heard of Sohee most often out of all of Hoeseung’s colleagues. She was funny. Her voice was soft yet husky. She acted innocent. She got angry at Hoeseung and tearfully yelled at him at least once a week. She was madly in love with another woman who refused to look her way.

Kenta didn’t know how much of the information was confidential. He hated knowing that much about another person. A stranger. But Kenta knew what he knew. For a while he had wondered whether Hoeseung mentioned him to other people. Whether Sohee was as well informed about Kenta as he was about her. Whether she had been told about a silly man who was obsessed with Hoeseung because of the scraps of affection that were just enough to sustain his starvation.

Kenta was starving. He devoured whatever he could. He wanted to be closer and closer and closer to Hoeseung. If having an encyclopaedic knowledge on the people in Hoeseung’s life was anything similar to affection, even though he hated knowing so much about strangers, Kenta was going to eat it up, write it into his heart. That was closeness enough.

Kenta was starved and Kenta was heartbroken.

Before he had thought he was just receptive to whatever Hoeseung would give him, but he realised he had smashed a hole in his own chest to be able to beg and sit and wait for something more.

_Sohee is glad that I don’t like women…_

Kenta didn’t know what it meant.

He didn’t know what any of this meant.

He didn’t dare to hope. This was the only thing that even the thought of hoping had his chest freezing up and his eyes burning. He didn’t dare to hope. Hope was never on Kenta’s side.

Rain beat against Kenta’s window and he knew that he couldn’t sleep. He read the words over and over and couldn’t make sense of them. He thought he understood them but they wouldn’t make any sense. Things were never that good for Kenta. Life in Seoul hadn’t been this good to Kenta. Not ever.

With the water drumming too rhythmically to be real, Kenta used his phone to translate every word and conjugation to see how the words could be interpreted differently. He didn’t feel any better for reading the words and he replied with a change of subject.

Maybe. Just maybe.

Kenta didn’t dare to hope.

 

*

 

Not hoping meant not reacting in the way that he wanted to.

It wasn’t raining, so Kenta wasn’t expecting Hoeseung to appear at the convenience store. Because Kenta wasn’t hoping for anything there was no reason for him to be happy that Hoeseung had arrived. There was no reason for him to nervously dissect every interaction either.

What did matter is that Hoeseung was standing at the counter, wearing Kenta’s jacket as part of some terrible habit that Kenta wished would be broken.

“How are you?” Hoeseung asked, full of the sort of cheer which had Kenta wishing that it meant something.

Kenta wasn’t sure how he was. Nervous and confused. A tiny bit scared. If he wasn’t careful, he would end up spiralling into these thoughts of folly. Without even seeing Hoeseung, Kenta had been making mistakes when giving change and missing items to be paid for. Now that Hoeseung was here, in front of Kenta and smiling, Kenta could only make more mistakes.

He smiled, and hoped that wasn’t too much of a mistake.

“You look well,” Hoeseung said, eyes sparkling and cheeks dimpling. Kenta wondered if Hoeseung had become even more perfect after saying something which had Kenta staying up at night and wondering what everything meant. Sohee was glad that Hoeseung didn’t like women. Should Kenta be glad too? Should he have been assuming what the alternative was? Kenta was not at all well and Hoeseung was a liar.

“You also look good,” Kenta said quietly, because he wasn’t a liar.

Hoeseung preened and gently touched at his face as though surprised. “Oh? I look good? Not just well, I look good? I will never turn down a compliment.”

“Of course you shouldn’t,” Kenta agreed.

“You shouldn’t either,” Hoeseung said, somehow serious despite his smile. Kenta nodded cautiously. Hoeseung said, “Seeing you makes me happy. Even if I can’t see you, when I imagine your face I feel cheerful.”

Kenta supposed that was a compliment. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do or say to that.

Sohee was glad that Hoeseung didn’t like women.

Seeing Kenta made Hoeseung happy.

Kenta was going mad.

“Hoeseung,” Kenta said. Hoeseung smiled as though their incremental intimacy was something to get so excited about. “I am glad that we are friends.”

Hoeseung reached across the counter to pat Kenta on the shoulder, smiling sunnily. “I knew it! I bet you get lonely when I don’t come.”

There was no point in denying it. These days, Kenta couldn’t help waiting and wondering. Loneliness was a part of Kenta’s day-to-day life. He didn’t have enough time to make friends and the co-workers from the café usually didn’t bother inviting Kenta out and talking to him when they learnt that he never had time to meet or talk. He had grown used to the state as a fact, yet he had all of this time for Hoeseung.

“I do.”

“Me too,” Hoeseung said. “I always miss you too, so you have to keep taking care of me.”

“How would I take care of you?”

Hoeseung looked like he was pondering this for a moment before his face split into a grin. “You must always be here when I can’t sleep and need snacks at night-time. And then you should always talk to me, even if you are busy.” 

That sounded doable. In fact, that sounded much like how Kenta was living now.

“You should do the same for me,” Kenta said, bravely.

Hoeseung grinned. “Good. I needed to tell someone about how ridiculous Sohee made me look at work today.”

Kenta wondered if this was loneliness, or the cure for it, just the two of them talking at night and Hoeseung telling anecdotes of a lifestyle Kenta couldn’t quite reach.  

 

*

 

Kenta didn’t know why he had been so worried about things.

It didn’t matter that Sohee was glad that Hoeseung didn’t like women. It didn’t matter that Hoeseung could shamelessly say things about missing Kenta as though the words didn’t matter. The words didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

Kenta’s work as a barman and waiter was sporadic. The work didn’t come along often and it was just as supplementary staff when bars and restaurants couldn’t cope, or when there were events like parties. Kenta only took the work when it fit in with the shifts he worked at the convenience store and the café, so he could only chalk the night up to a coincidence.

Hoeseung’s department wasn’t a large one, but they seemed to be doing a lot to foster good will between themselves and the property developers they had been trying to secure a contract with.

Kenta didn’t know how productive downing shots and accidentally slopping beer over each other would be, but it was good to see Hoeseung having a good time with his colleagues. Kenta had noticed him as soon as the group had walked in and been taken to their corporate room.

It had been an hour of walking past the increasingly raucous room before Kenta had to dip inside and serve the merry group a tray of octopus. Hoeseung noticed him right away, shaking the shoulders of the woman beside him as he called out to Kenta.

“It’s my friend! Kenta!” Hoeseung announced excitedly. Kenta very carefully placed down the tray of food. It must have been the alcohol because everyone descended upon the anju like they had been starved. Hoeseung flapped his arms and Kenta supposed he was supposed to go over. “Sohee, this is my friend Kenta!”

“It is nice to meet you,” Kenta said.

“I am glad we have met too,” Sohee agreed with a sloppy smile. Her eyes were slightly unfocused and she looked sleepy, but she was pretty enough that Kenta could understand that Hoeseung got slapped daily for telling her as much. “I have heard a lot about you, Kenta-ssi!”

“Ah, yes.” Kenta hesitated. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know how much Sohee had heard about him. Kenta had heard far too much about Sohee. Even now he was wondering whether the woman Sohee liked was in this room. But Hoeseung and Sohee were smiling up at him. “I have heard a lot about you, too, Sohee-ssi.”

Sohee looked happy enough about that, so Kenta can’t have gone too far wrong.

“You always appear when I want to see you the most,” Hoeseung said happily, clinging to Kenta’s arm. “How do you always know?”

Kenta wasn’t sure what to say to that. He patted Hoeseung’s shoulder awkwardly and said, “Normally it is you who comes to me.”

He wasn’t lying. They usually saw each other when Hoeseung turned up at the convenience store, knowing that Kenta was going to be working, or when he turned up at the café, usually as a coincidence. Hoeseung didn’t look too happy with this, the corners of his mouth downturned. Sohee frowned up at Kenta. Kenta didn’t know what he had said wrong.

“Hoeseung, why are you sad? I am always happy when you come to see me,” Kenta said gently. Hoeseung’s expression instantly brightened.

“Happy? Really?”

“Of course.”

Hoeseung turned to Sohee, grinning. “Kenta is Japanese, you know. Don’t you think he speaks so well? The sound of his voice makes me so happy. I like Kenta so much.”

“I know,” Sohee said. “You tell me all the time.”

Kenta needed to leave. He wanted to at least go somewhere private so that he could try to take inventory of his face and try to look normal. Instead, Hoeseung was anchoring Kenta to this spot where he could be seen by Hoeseung’s co-workers and more. He didn’t know what sort of expression he was making. He didn’t know why he was making any sort of expression at all.

“But I do like him! He is my best friend in the whole world,” Hoeseung asserted. “He even gave me his jacket, and I wear it every single day!”

“How lucky,” Sohee said neutrally as she squinted at her glass of beer. “I need some more beer. And maybe some chicken.”

“I will fetch you some,” Kenta said quickly.

“Why?”

“I’m at work, Hoeseung,” Kenta explained. Hoeseung frowned a bit but when Kenta smiled at him, he returned it. Kenta added, “I will be back soon. You should have fun with your colleagues.”

“I will,” Hoeseung said solemnly.

As Kenta was leaving he heard someone very loudly asking Hoeseung how he knew Kenta. Kenta shut the door quickly, not wanting to hear the explanation.  When he returned to the room, Hoeseung was shyly hiding his face in Sohee’s shoulder. It was less awkward than before with Hoeseung not calling out to him and waving, and Kenta could appreciate that Hoeseung did have some cute aspects to his personality.

When his shift was over, and Hoeseung’s company party had moved on, Kenta was happy to see the message he received.

_I would like it if you could appear the next time I miss you._

 

*

 

It was raining.

It was night-time.

There were hardly any customers.

Kenta wasn’t disappointed that Hoeseung didn’t come to see him, because he wasn’t allowing himself to be silly. He wasn’t allowed to have strange expectations. He just had to get on with his job and nap whenever he had the chance.

He wasn’t quite so good at dropping off at the counter as he used to be. He used to be able to prop his head on his hand and let his eyes fall shut until the creak of the door and the jingle of the bell was enough to drag his eyelids open to alertness. These days he had succumbed to sneaking his phone into the pocket of his work apron and talking with Hoeseung.

Instead of sleeping, and instead of messaging Hoeseung, Kenta was checking his phone for notifications that never came. He knew he was uselessly being distracted but he couldn’t help but expect at least a message.

He was always hoping. Always expecting. Kenta was never proactive. He had given up so many times and he didn’t have a clue why. He was waiting for Hoeseung to reach out to him first. Waiting for other people was the reason Kenta lost touch so easily with potential friends, and potential possibilities to be more than friends, and opportunities to do the things he had dreamed of.

Kenta sent the first message.

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: Do you like the sound of the rain?_

It was a silly thing to say but Kenta couldn’t think of anything else. If he said anything too flippant Hoeseung might not reply. He didn’t have a history of ignoring Kenta’s messages, but this could be the beginning of a trend. If Kenta said anything too invasive, demanding to know why he hadn’t heard from Hoeseung, it could be even more off-putting. 

He almost gave up five minutes after sending the message. But a reply came.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Of course I do._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: The rain reminds me to come and see you._

It was the best and worst thing Hoeseung could have said. It was already difficult for Kenta to not get too attached to this person who was nice to him for no reason. Now he was hearing the sorts of things that already had him glued to his phone and expecting things he shouldn’t.

There was a stronger gust of wind which had the rain tapping harder against the windows. There was no better reminder than this. Kenta was already stuck, expecting. There were things that he wanted to say and he wondered if he could do it well. He was curious as to whether he could pass as casual and nonchalant if he said something he was really thinking. If he could pretend it was a joke.

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: It is raining now. But you aren’t here, Hoeseung._

Kenta felt brave. The message was sent and all he could do was wait. Perhaps the reply wouldn’t be too bad. Perhaps Hoeseung was well aware of Kenta’s inept disguise of his feelings. He was likely just ignoring the stares that Kenta couldn’t help, and the tension in his voice as he forced calm into syllables he was continually struggling with.

Kenta’s heart stuttered at Hoeseung’s reply. It was too similar to what he had been expecting to hear.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I know._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Take pity on me._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I am dying._

Kenta could imagine the lilting tone of Hoeseung’s voice for that statement. He couldn’t think of any possibility that Hoeseung would be remotely serious when declaring that he was dying. Kenta tried not to smile widely. Even without being seen he should at least play along, pretend to be concerned.

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: Why? It is a cold? Are you hungover?_

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I won’t answer that._

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: How much did you drink?_

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Who said anything about drinking?_

Kenta couldn’t hold back his smile. Nobody needed to say anything about drinking. Kenta had seen Hoeseung getting steadily merrier last night. Jealousy had panged through Kenta’s chest several times through the night. He was working while Hoeseung’s colleagues got to have him to themselves, making him laugh and being right at his side as his tipsiness turned tactile. Kenta had seen it all and swallowed his feelings down. He must have been suffering from indigestion. It didn’t matter very much.

Kenta swallowed it all down again, he didn’t feel a thing, and looked back over the messages. There was a new one.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Is this what you think of me?_

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: I must be honest. It is._

Hoeseung didn’t reply for a while. Kenta pushed his phone back into the pocket of his apron. Hoeseung had said that he wasn’t feeling well – he had said ‘dying’ but Kenta would bet that he was dying more. He was already decaying from his stagnant thoughts and the churning of sepsis inside him that was worsening by the day.

The door opened and the bell rang. Two young women stepped out of the rain, their brightly coloured umbrellas and rain macs showed hints of co-ordination. Kenta was a beat late in greeting them and they were already murmuring behind their hands as they perused the shelves.

Kenta busied himself with organising the chewing gum and the cigarettes. All the while he could hear the two ladies giggling to each other and whining as the other shoved playfully at their arms. He belatedly wondered if the women might be shoplifting. He glanced over his shoulder, but even if he was looking closely, Kenta wasn’t sure he would have been able to tell if they were.

He gave up. He shouldn’t have been distracted in the first place. He had hardly been an exemplary employee since he started working at the convenience store. There was no difference in his productivity between sleeping and constantly messaging Hoeseung.

He returned to leaning on the counter and checking his phone.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: My heart is breaking._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I thought my life was in danger just now._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: You just dealt me the final blow._

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: Would I hurt you?_

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: You are hurting me now. With your words. You are so mean._

Kenta grinned. It was this cute side of Hoeseung again. Kenta shouldn’t have been delighting in this so much. He was just happy to have a friend, he supposed. He had missed simple things like this, talking regularly with a person and just being able to joke.

He wanted to see Hoeseung in person, just to see what his face looked like when reacting to Kenta’s words. It was an idle curiosity, but Kenta couldn’t help it. He was still grinning when the girls came up to the counter with armfuls of beer and kimbap.

Kenta served them quickly and once they had gone, putting up their umbrellas and scurrying into the downpour, he was alone.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Do you honestly think I am some horrid drunk?_

Kenta was still grinning too widely.

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: Of course not._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: You’re lying to me._

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: You can’t prove that._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I can. When I see you, I will prove that you are lying to me._

_TAKADA KENTA-SSI: But you can’t see me._

It was only supposed to be a slightly cheeky reply. It didn’t matter that Kenta wished that it wasn’t the case. The pangs vibrating inside his ribs grew stronger when Hoeseung’s next messages arrived.

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: I want to see you._

_YOO HOESEUNG-SSI: Come over._

Kenta wanted nothing more. It was pathetic and silly, especially when he couldn’t keep his mind off the more intrusive thoughts involving Hoeseung. He wanted more than Hoeseung was giving, and it was difficult to separate his genuine feelings from the fantasies which followed the echoes of possibility that Kenta desperately hoped for.

But Hoeseung was asking for him, minutes after being cute in the way that Kenta had learnt he wanted to see much more of. After Hoeseung texted his address, it seemed that much more real. Kenta couldn’t concentrate at all, so he was lucky that there were hardly any more customers for the rest of his shift.

At half past five, he didn’t even wait for the employee for the next shift to clock in properly. Kenta was already tugging on Hoeseung’s jacket and rushing out of the door when the minute-hand of the clock ticket to the magic moment. It had been raining all night, and by this point it was a quiet drizzle. The air was fresh and Kenta was aware of the skip in his step as he made the short walk to Hoeseung’s house.

 

When Hoeseung opened the gate, Kenta wished that he hadn’t called him out in a state like this. His face was drawn and the skin underneath his eyes was purpled with fatigue. He hadn’t even worn anything more substantial than a light cardigan to come into the rain to greet Kenta.

“Why do you look like this? Is this from alcohol alone?” Kenta asked. Hoeseung shushed him with a wince and a grimace. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Hoeseung whispered. He gestured for Kenta to follow. He closed the gate and shuffled to the front door of the house and let them both inside. It was dark, though Kenta wasn’t surprised considering it was still very early in the morning. And Hoeseung lived with his parents.

“Is it alright that I came here?” Kenta whispered. Hoeseung nodded but didn’t say anything. Kenta removed his shoes as directed and followed Hoeseung up the stairs to his room.

Kenta tried not to pay too much attention to the fact that he was in Hoeseung’s bedroom. This was where Hoeseung relaxed, and slept, and undressed, and…

None of that mattered. Nothing mattered. A room was a room. There was nothing particularly special or significant about this room. Kenta had been in a few rooms before. There was no need to make a fuss. Kenta didn’t make a fuss. He placed the carrier bag he had brought from the convenience store on Hoeseung’s desk and wondered whether it was silly of him to have gone through the effort.

“You look rough,” Kenta said, his back turned as Hoeseung collapsed heavily onto his bed. Hoeseung groaned. Kenta paused before he looked over his shoulder.

“I am suffering. Did you really come here to insult me?” Hoeseung asked quietly.

“Why are you suffering? Is this just from drinking yesterday?”

Hoeseung had been incredibly drunk when Kenta had last seen him. He didn’t seem to be having too much trouble at the time. He could stand up and hold a reasonably intelligent conversation as he downed more and more shots.

Kenta turned to properly face Hoeseung. “Did you go somewhere else to drink too?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you an old man already?” Kenta asked. “Why are you still hungover. Has it not been a whole day?”

Hoeseung only groaned again, his arm slung over his face. Even if Hoeseung had continued to drink after leaving the bar Kenta was doing temporary work it must have been around twenty-four hours since he stopped drinking. There was no reason for him to be in such a state even now.

“Do you need painkillers?” Kenta asked.

“Please,” Hoeseung replied weakly. Kenta twisted the cap off the bottle of water he had brought and popped two pills out of the packaging to pass to Hoeseung. Even after prompting, all Hoeseung did was open his mouth. It seemed dangerous to drop choking hazards into the mouth of a person who was lying down but Hoeseung insisted despite Kenta trying to explain it. He probably wasn’t explaining it well and wondered how he would fare explaining this exact situation to the paramedics when an ambulance was called to stop Hoeseung choking to death.

Kenta hesitated for a moment too long and Hoeseung lifted his arm from his eyes and looked right at Kenta. He closed his mouth and swallowed. He licked his lips. He reached out and pulled until Kenta was kneeling at the edge of his bed. Kenta wanted to go home before he did something he would regret.

“Please,” Hoeseung said again.

Hoeseung’s lips parted once more, a flash of pink pushed past his teeth. Hoeseung’s eyes were half-lidded and drowsy. This was dangerous. Between his fingertips, Kenta held one of the tablets and poised it above the waiting mouth. His fingers brushing Hoeseung’s lips as he pushed the tablet into Hoeseung’s mouth didn’t mean a thing. Neither did the way Hoeseung’s lips closed around the tip of Kenta’s index finger, hot and wet before the gentle scrape of his teeth that had Kenta’s spine tingling.

Kenta pulled his finger away, brought his hand to cradle the back of Hoeseung’s head to tilt it up as he pressed the mouth of the water bottle to his mouth. Very slowly, Kenta tipped the bottle and a wash of water wet Hoeseung’s lips, filled the cavity of his mouth, and he swallowed.

Kenta screwed the cap onto the bottle. He still had the other tablet curled into his palm but he couldn’t give it to Hoeseung. Not like this.

“I brought some other things for you. I should go.”

“You can’t,” Hoeseung said quickly, sitting up and tugging hard enough for Kenta to tumble into the space beside him. Kenta sat up so that he wasn’t so higgledy-piggledy over Hoeseung’s lap. He immediately wished he had moved a bit further. “I invited you here because I need you. Is it polite to leave now?”

“You need me?”

Hoeseung’s mouth stretched into the sort of grin where his cheeks dimpled and Kenta’s heart stuttered. There was a glitter in his eyes as he nodded slowly. Sly as always. Sly once more. “That’s right,” He said. “I need you.”

That didn’t sound anywhere near the truth. It was Kenta who was always needing people. Needing and wanting and denying himself because it was better to consider others. Kenta needed Hoeseung. He needed Hoeseung to pay attention in the ways Kenta always hoped that he wouldn’t.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

Kenta didn’t want to answer that. He looked away and wished he hadn’t. His jacket was hanging on the wall. He wondered how many times Hoeseung had worn it. How many times he planned to wear it in the future. Kenta was wearing Hoeseung’s jacket right now. He wondered the same thing about himself – how many more times he planned to allow himself this much.

“Kenta,” Hoeseung said quietly. “I am still in a bit of pain.”

Kenta opened his hand. His hands were clammy enough that the tablet had left white residue on his palm so of course he wouldn’t have expected Hoeseung to swallow it. Before he could say any of that, Hoeseung curled his fingers around Kenta’s gently.

“Only you can make me feel better.”

“How?” Kenta asked, not liking where this going as equally as he hoped that he was right about what was happening.

Hoeseung leaned in closer and closer until the only possibility was one that Kenta had hoped to avoid. Hoping never worked out well for Kenta.

The first touch of Hoeseung’s hand on Kenta’s cheek was hesitant and it was a rare moment that Kenta was doomed to remember at his worst moments. Kenta wasn’t fragile in the slightest, he only worried a lot about wanting too much from people he had no business relying on. But he wasn’t offended by the care. It was just another thing he would remember to harden his heart to and only recall when nobody else would know.

Kenta felt the smile against his lips and he felt the breath freeze low in his chest. In that moment Kenta was fragile and he was made to be handled with the care that Hoeseung gave. In that moment Hoeseung was delicate and Kenta should be even more careful with him, holding him firm, letting him know that safety existed here between Kenta’s hands and in the parting of his lips.

Kenta had never wanted to know the softness of Hoeseung’s skin, and the coy pressure of his lips, and the warmth of Hoeseung’s tongue as it pushed into his mouth with the constant question of permission. Kenta had never wanted to know what it was like to taste Hoeseung’s sleep-stale breath and the texture of his unwashed hair and the sound of his disbelieving giggles, breathy over the rain. Kenta had never wanted to know these things because he knew he was destined to never forget them.

It was Hoeseung who pushed back at Kenta’s chest to part them. 

“I feel better now,” He said.

“Good,” Kenta said. He tried to sound casual, like none of this even mattered to him, because Hoeseung’s usual type of smile was back. It wasn’t that Kenta felt as though he had been tricked. It was only that he didn’t want to look as though he felt that way. 

“I only feel a little bit better. I need you to stay with me longer,” Hoeseung said, drawing a knuckle up and down the column of Kenta’s throat. “I won’t be able to sleep comfortably.”

Kenta didn’t feel as though he was being tricked, but he was beginning to think that he was the one being crafty this whole time. His throat was tight, the tension following the varying pressure of Hoeseung’s hand, and he swallowed.

“Do you want me to sleep next to you?” Kenta asked.

Hoeseung’s eyes went wide for a moment as though he could genuinely be surprised. They both knew that was what Hoeseung was leading up to. There was something coquettish in the way Hoeseung nodded his head and dropped back onto the bed.

Kenta lay his head on the pillow beside Hoeseung’s, watching his eyes drop closed in the yellowish light on the bedside table, hearing his breathing slow above the pouring of the rain outside. Their faces were so close like this. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to test Kenta’s patience before he eventually attempted to doze.

A sudden movement woke Kenta. That and something whipping his cheek sharply. He sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes, and he wished that he hadn’t when he had gained some of his bearings. Hoeseung looked just as surprised as Kenta felt, though Kenta wasn’t sure what right Hoeseung had to look that way.

“Why are you undressing?” Kenta asked quietly. He didn’t like the sound of his voice. It was hard and fractured out of his throat, at odds with the soft percussion of the rain on the window. Hoeseung looked down at his bare chest and the T-shirt and cardigan he had discarded. He blinked a few times as he gathered his bearings and then he realised.

Hoeseung held his hands out between them and his pupils were trembling. “I am not a strange person. It is only a habit. I get hot when I sleep, so I sometimes undress.”

Kenta nodded. Plenty of people had strange habits. This was nothing special.

“I should go.”

“You’re going to leave?” Hoeseung asked. He looked confused. Kenta didn’t see what was so confusing about what he said.

He crawled over Hoeseung, out of the bed, and patted down his clothes. There was white residue on his hand from where the tablet he had held onto when he fell asleep had dissolved onto his hand and he wiped the gunk on the inside of his trouser pocket. He pulled his phone from his pocket and saw it was a more acceptable time of the morning by now.

“I am going now,” Kenta confirmed. “I have a shift at the café this afternoon, so I should get ready for that.”

Hoeseung tripped over his trousers as he scrambled to get up. He seemed conflicted between grabbing Kenta’s arms and not reaching out at all. His countenance tensed as Kenta leaned out of his reach. He shook his head and took a step backwards.

“I’m sorry, Kenta. You haven’t slept yet,” Hoeseung said, carefully considering his words.

“It is fine,” Kenta said. He tried to smile, because he didn’t want to create a strange atmosphere. Things really were fine. “I will sleep better at home.”

“I am sorry for making you feel uncomfortable,” Hoeseung said.

Kenta shook his head. He had already made the atmosphere strange. He wasn’t sure what he was doing when he reached out for Hoeseung, to close the space between them. He didn’t really have any particular intentions but once Hoeseung’s face softened, their fingers loosely linked, Kenta realised what he wanted to do despite his reservations about the whole thing.

He stepped into Hoeseung’s space, watched his face to detect any negative pulling of his features, and when he saw what might have been hope on Hoeseung’s face he moved that bit closer. It might have been hope, more likely wishful thinking of Kenta’s part. Hoeseung didn’t back away when Kenta curled a hand around the back of his neck and moved forward to press their mouths together gently.

It was closed-mouthed and chaste and did nothing to sate the desire curling low in Kenta’s belly. But it steadied his nerves for a moment.

Hoeseung’s eyelashes were fluttering until he slowly opened his eyes. He couldn’t seem to decide on looking at Kenta’s eyes or his mouth. He licked at his lips and Kenta found he was having the same struggles.

“I don’t feel uncomfortable. Not at all,” Kenta said. “This is fine. We’re friends.”

“Friends,” Hoeseung repeated. Kenta nodded.

“Friends.”

Hoeseung pressed closer, just for a peck. Kenta hadn’t wanted to get caught up like this, whispers of half-formed declarations of friendship as they traded tiny pecks. He had to stop it, pressing his finger to Hoeseung’s lips, ignoring the gasp, and pulling away completely.

“I really must leave now.”

“Stay,” Hoeseung whined. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“You’re right,” Kenta agreed. “When my landlord asks where my money is what shall I say? My friend told me not to earn money. I have to stay with him.”

Hoeseung nodded happily. “That’s perfect.”

It was ridiculous and Kenta couldn’t help laughing at that, only stopping when Hoeseung swallowed the chuckle right from Kenta’s lips. This wasn’t right, Kenta needed to go. They had agreed that they were friends but Kenta was going to get the wrong idea the longer Hoeseung clung to him and asked him to stay.

Listening to Hoeseung’s pleas, staying, was too much like hoping. Kenta had given up on hoping. He managed to leave with the promise of seeing each other again soon to much pouting and grumbling as Hoeseung managed to pull his clothes back on and see him out. 

 

*

 

The next few times Kenta saw Hoeseung neither of them mentioned the kiss.

Hoeseung came to the convenience store to buy more chocolates as apologies for his mum and would make jokes at his own expense as often as he made fun of Kenta. It was normal for them. Kenta saw Hoeseung another time when he was working as extra staff for a party, and it was busy so there wasn’t much of a chance to talk. When they messaged one another, there was hardly any mention of things of substance. Just fragments of jokes and orders to take better care of themselves.

A week was not a long time at all, but it was long enough that Kenta’s thoughts about the kiss had stewed until their pungency permeated every moment when he could no longer distract himself. He didn’t have too many spare moments because he was always looking for something to do when he worked, always keeping busy so there was no question of his worth. There were a few moments when he couldn’t do much more than wipe café tables or check the expiry dates on packaging. It was little enough activity for his mind to wonder and he wished he could filter the thoughts out.

He was certain that he had thought Hoeseung into existence at the café on a morning when he was working at the café. He was sitting with a woman Kenta had seen before. He couldn’t put the names to faces properly, but he had met a few of Hoeseung’s colleagues and he had heard enough about them through their messages that he was confident that the woman was one of a select few people.

It would be strange to approach them on a day that Kenta couldn’t stop thinking about kissing. He didn’t have much choice when it turned out that he would be the one to take their drinks and cakes over. Hoeseung seemed to have noticed Kenta’s presence much earlier, while Kenta was pretending to be remotely professional, and sat up straighter when Kenta finally approached the table.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Hoeseung grinned.

“It is shocking that I would be in my place of work,” Kenta agreed. Hoeseung laughed but the woman he was with fiddled with her fringe as though that would disguise the furrow in her brows.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were the friend who lived near Hoeseung’s home,” She said.

“Ah, Haein, this is Kenta, my friend.”

The woman nodded. “I know. You won’t stop showing me pictures of him when we are at work.” She noticed the alarm in Kenta’s face and tried on a reassuring expression. “Sorry, Kenta-ssi, my name is Lee Haein and I know too much about you. The pictures aren’t terrible. They are just the same two creepy, almost stalkerish pictures that he took of you. From those pictures I assumed you worked at a convenience store.”

“I do,” Kenta said slowly. This was strange. This was stranger than kissing and not knowing what to think about it. “When did you take pictures of me?”

“Does it matter?” Hoeseung replied flippantly. Kenta would at least have the decency to show some shame if he had done what he wanted to and taken pictures of Hoeseung. Hoeseung looked as though he thought nothing of it. “I needed a contact photo for my phone.”

It was probably the worst excuse Kenta had ever heard. His fingers were too tight on the tray he was holding. It was strange that Hoeseung would have to covertly take a photograph for something so innocuous when it hadn’t been long ago when he had asked Kenta for something much more outrageous. This was horrible. Kenta was only becoming more confused.

“I don’t have a contact photo for you.”

Haein clapped her hands over her mouth but the action barely muffled the laughter. Kenta was beginning to sweat.

“We should take better pictures then,” Hoeseung decided.

Kenta nodded. This was too much when he was only trying to work.

“Why was I never given this option, Hoeseung? Isn’t my contact photo blurry and ugly?” Haein asked.

“The thing is, I don’t much care for what your picture looks like.”

Haein laughed loudly and must have kicked Hoseung’s shin by the way he flinched. “After I paid, you are going to treat me like this?”

“That hurt,” Hoeseung whined.

“It was supposed to,” Haein retorted.

“I should get back to work,” Kenta said awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed enough about seeing Hoeseung and meeting another of Hoeseung’s friends. They seemed to get on well enough and Kenta didn’t fit very well in his apron while clutching a tray to his chest.

“So soon?” Haein asked.

It didn’t look good that Kenta was slacking off in this way while there were many other customers to deal with. It didn’t take long for Haein and Hoeseung to let him go, though Haein did loudly protest to several things Hoeseung said to her while they remained in the café. They were having a good time. Kenta wished he could have a good time with Hoeseung instead of any good feelings marred by his own uncertainty.

It was silly to think about those sorts of things while he was working, but Kenta couldn’t help it. It didn’t help that Hoeseung visited him at the convenience store far too often. Kenta didn’t work very hard. It was only that these days he was trying to remain distracted. It was difficult when the distraction appeared too often for Kenta to maintain his sanity.

It was unlikely that he was such an interesting topic of conversation, but each time Kenta glanced over to the table where Hoeseung and Haein sat he found his eyes meeting Hoeseung’s. It was silly, and Kenta thought that the problem would resolve itself more readily if he didn’t look, yet when he gave in he had to immediately look away.

Kenta hoped he was just being silly. He was a silly person anyway. He was getting orders wrong and making far too many mistakes. He was foolishly thinking about being kissed and having his photo taken. It was silly. Kenta was far too silly. But he didn’t feel entirely silly about being silly when Hoeseung approached him before he left.

Kenta was far too aware of his colleagues’ attention. It seemed that Kenta’s attention was never in the right place. Hoeseung smiled, even though Kenta kept glancing over his shoulder at the nosy barista.

“When is your next day off?” Hoeseung asked.

“I don’t know,” Kenta said. Hoeseung nodded, still smiling, not entirely disappointed that Kenta couldn’t reply. So it probably wasn’t terrible that Kenta was so useless. He was already hoping too much but maybe if he hoped a bit harder, this once, he might get what he wanted.

“Let me know,” Hoeseung said. “Even if it is during the week.”

“During the week?”

“Of course,” Hoeseung said. He coughed lightly and added, “I will need to know when to call in sick to work.”

“Hoeseung –” It didn’t sound like a very good idea but already Hoeseung was walking away.

“I will be waiting,” Hoeseung called over his shoulder. Haein looked as though she was waiting too, checking her phone and crossing her arms until Hoeseung picked up the pace.

Kenta was prepared to go back to work as normal and hope that his face wasn’t red enough to attract questions from the customers. He was right about to do that when a hand tapped him on his shoulder.

“Who was that person?” The barista asked slowly, like he was speaking to an idiot (which he sort of was while Kenta was recovering from talking to Hoeseung).

“My friend,” Kenta said. The barista nodded though he didn’t looked entirely pleased with the reply.

“Your friend?”

“That’s right.”

The barista hummed thoughtfully and shook his head. “Friend. I don’t think that’s the right word.”

 

*

 

Unlike the kiss, Hoeseung seemed determined to discover when Kenta had a day off. For a few weeks there wasn’t a proper day off for Kenta to suggest. Some days he would have technically been working into the early hours at the convenience store and often he had café shifts on the same day or the next one. Kenta was never too certain about when he might be asked to help out at a bar or hotel for a function.

Hoeseung came to the convenience store quite often – almost every time Kenta was working, regardless of the weather. Every day he asked whether Kenta had a free day, and when they didn’t see each other in person, he would message with the same question.

It was raining on the last day that Hoeseung asked.

“I am sorry to have kept bothering you this whole time,” Hoeseung said in lieu of a greeting. He was wearing Kenta’s jacket, as was expected by this point, and he shook the rain out of his hair. He was also wearing the smile that Kenta was used to, but that was something that never faded.

“You bothered me?” Kenta asked, standing up straighter behind the counter. He didn’t like the sound of the apology. Kenta couldn’t think of anything that had bothered him, nothing that would require an apology. Even the kiss that Kenta was still struggling to push out of his mind hadn’t been a bother to Kenta. It was something he could use while he imagined being happy. It wasn’t a bother.

“I did bother you,” Hoeseung confirmed. “I still am now.”

Kenta vaguely wondered whether he was understanding wrong. It wouldn’t make sense to be told something like this. Hoeseung must have meant that Kenta was bothering Hoeseung – which could be easily remedied if Hoeseung stopped coming to the convenience store. Though that could be just as much of a bother, for Hoeseung to have to go out of his way to go to a different shop when he was craving snacks in the middle of the night. He could surely make new friends if he ever did venture further at night to the convenience store ten minutes further from here – but knowing as much wasn’t pleasant. Kenta wished that instead of doing things like this, Hoeseung would quietly wind the friendship away until the strands that made them meet trembled under the strain and eventually snapped.

Realising that he was slowly losing a friend, and then noticing that Hoeseung hadn’t spoken to him in weeks and weeks and later months, would hurt just as much as being told directly. It would hurt the same but that was preferable to having to wear a civil expression while being told to his face.

“I’m sorry,” Kenta said. Remorse might yield a kinder break.

“It’s alright,” Hoeseung said, quite cheerfully. “This will be the last time I ask you.”

“Ask me what?”

“Do you have any days off? I would quite like to go on a date with you, Kenta.”

Kenta had been hoping for quite some time about quite a lot of things. He had never let himself believe that the things he had been seeing from the bias of desire actually had a chance of coming true.

Hoeseung had been asking Kenta on a date all this time. And this was the last chance.

“You want to go on a date with me?”

“Yes?” Hoeseung replied, his usual grin fading. “Is that okay?”

Kenta nodded quickly. “It is. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I was scared of things getting worse.”

“Worse?”

Kenta gestured at his head. He wasn’t sure how to say what he meant. Hoeseung’s expression didn’t look very good. “I think of things. A lot. I am a bit silly.”

Hoeseung’s expression wasn’t improving at all. Kenta wished that he hadn’t spoken. He wasn’t certain that saying anything more would help or make things worse. But he couldn’t not say anything and let the situation deteriorate as certainly as it was.

“I can’t believe you are asking me on a date. I promise I will tell you as soon as I have a day off,” Kenta said.

“How can you not believe it?” Hoeseung asked. “I kissed you.”

Hoeseung did kiss Kenta. And Kenta kissed Hoeseung back. And then they kept saying that they were friends. It had been difficult to determine what the kiss meant.

“You had been drinking,” Kenta said.

“The day before,” Hoeseung said. “I wasn’t still drunk at that time. I was tired and I had a headache, but I wasn’t drunk. I knew what I was doing when I kissed you. Did you not want to do it?”

“I wanted to kiss you. I want to kiss you,” Kenta said quietly.

There was a long moment before Kenta could look up properly. It shouldn’t have felt like losing so much to admit when Hoeseung had been asked him on a date so many times without getting a proper answer. Kenta wished that he had never looked up to see the smarmy grin all over Hoeseung’s face.

“You want to kiss me? How wonderful. I want to kiss you too,” Hoeseung said. “We shouldn’t though. We can kiss again if we ever get that date.”

“We will, I promise!” Kenta said.

Hoeseung nodded and smiled. Kenta still couldn’t quite believe his luck.

 

*

 

It was still far too long before Kenta had a day off. It was a whole week after Kenta had found out that the day off was intended to be a date before Kenta had a day off. He could have had to wait much longer than that, he supposed, because the time that had elapsed between Hoeseung first asking and Kenta finding out that he was being asked on a date had been much longer.

Kenta didn’t feel nervous. He saw Hoeseung all the time, though usually he was at work. He could hardly remember a time when he hadn’t been at work when he saw Hoeseung. This was something different. But Kenta felt very calm about the whole thing.

Rather than nerves building up, he felt relieved. He had spent so long being stupid and ignoring all of the things he hoped he could see. It was nice to be able to let himself hope that he was seeing things as they really were. He was going on a date. Surely this meant he was allowed to wonder if Hoeseung was flirting with him.

Unless ice skating wasn’t very conducive to flirting. Kenta had never been before, but after his initial apprehension about that he was mostly just glad to be spending time with Hoeseung.

Hoeseung wasn’t wearing Kenta’s jacket for once. It was sort of disappointing on a day when Kenta had worn Hoeseung’s jacket. Hoeseung looked surprised.

“You’re wearing my jacket,” Hoeseung said slowly.

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Hi,” Hoeseung said quickly. “Is this the first time you have worn it?”

“The third time,” Kenta corrected quietly. “We swapped, remember.”

Hoeseung nodded. They didn’t mention the jacket again. Kenta was glad of that because he hadn’t thought such a fuss would be made of his clothing choices. He had never done the same for the dozens of times Hoeseung had worn his jacket. Dozens of times – goodness, the jacket practically belonged to Hoeseung at this point. 

Hoeseung had a riveting story about Sohee’s distaste when a client tried to flirt with her in the middle of a contract meeting to pass the time as they made their way to the ice rink. By the time they reached the huge building (Kenta hadn’t thought an ice rink would need to be housed in such a large venue) Kenta hoped that he was supposed to think that the man got his just deserts when Sohee ‘accidentally’ poured scalding tea on him. Kenta didn’t asked what Hoeseung thought as he told the story, he just laughed a long and was amazed that nothing had gone seriously wrong so far.

The first hiccup came when they paid their admission. Hoeseung was forceful about paying for Kenta.

“It will hurt my feelings if you don’t let me pay,” Hoeseung said, smiling out of the corner of his eye and returning the plastic smile of the woman behind the counter. Kenta’s feelings were getting quite hurt by the strength of Hoeseung’s refusal to let him pay for himself. They couldn’t keep bickering here. There wasn’t a queue behind them, but Kenta was sure that there were other things that the woman could be doing with her time that didn’t involve waiting for Kenta and Hoeseung to make up their minds.

“I can afford it,” Kenta said. Hoeseung excused them both for a moment and stepped away from the counter before he lowered his voice to reply.

“Kenta, this is a date, isn’t it? Please let me pay.” Hoeseung said.

Kenta hesitated. He supposed this must have been the difference between giving them both what they wanted (a date, finally, after all of this wondering if it was a possibility) and being too scared. Kenta hadn’t even been arguing to pay for both of them himself. He had only thought about paying separately as the alternative to Hoeseung paying for them. There was no doubt that the woman behind the counter had caught on by now.

“Alright,” Kenta agreed. He supposed it was worth giving up this much to see how happy it made Hoeseung.

“A real date, at last,” Hoeseung said when they had their rented skates and were on their way to the lockers to put away their things.

Kenta planned to get rid of Hoeseung’s jacket at that point because wearing it for a while longer would be the end of him. There had been some confusion with the size of the skates that were required so he was already embarrassed about that. He didn’t need every stumble and slip he was sure to make worsened by the fact that he was surrounded entirely by Hoeseung.

Except when he tried to take off the jacket, Hoeseung frowned. “You will be cold.”

Kenta didn’t want to hear something like that. He wanted to be told it was fine to take off the jacket – the jacket that he had worn in some lapse in judgement – and allow himself to breathe a bit easier. Kenta hadn’t felt nervous at all about today, but he was certainly tense about the whole thing when Hoeseung was right there with him.

Kenta felt no less tense when they were about to take to the ice and Hoeseung offered his hand. Kenta wondered whether it would be strange to take it and Hoeseung appeared to understand Kenta’s thoughts and explained it away as some physical support to keep him standing. It was a good enough excuse, but Kenta wished he had been able to take off the jacket earlier because he was far too hot.

But it was fine. They were holding hands and shuffling from safety to the impending hazards of the ice. And then Hoeseung fell flat on his face and took Kenta down with him. Kenta rolled to his knees quickly, apologising the whole time for falling on top of Hoeseung and not quite certain of what happened. He hadn’t been completely unsteady on his feet. It seemed like a good start. Hoeseung sat up, blinking away his dazed expression before grinning at Kenta.

“We need to be careful,” Hoeseung said. “We don’t want to do that again.”

“Again?” Kenta asked on a frown. “Why did it happen one time?”

Hoeseung pretended to look thoughtful for a second – Kenta could tell because Hoeseung never made such an exaggerated frown when he paused to be pensive – before his face broke out into a grin once more. “I forgot!” He said, giddy with joy, “I can’t skate!”

Kenta narrowed his eyes. He highly doubted that it was possible to forget something like that. Kenta never forgot that he couldn’t sew, and he couldn’t juggle, and he couldn’t do tongue twisters, and he couldn’t eat cold food quickly. Even if a person wasn’t required to do something all the time, they would still retain the knowledge that the couldn’t do it. But Hoeseung was so benign about the whole thing, grinning goofily as though he was really surprised about the fact but he didn’t much mind.

“You can’t skate?” Kenta asked, just in case.

Hoeseung crawled to his knees and very cautiously put a bladed foot to the ice once more. “I can’t skate!” He confirmed.

“Me too. I can’t skate,” Kenta said, feeling a lot less sad about the whole thing with Hoeseung being so proud.

“We can’t skate!” Hoeseung exclaimed happily. He looked more like he was surfing than skating as he shifted his balance too quickly and waved his arms at his sides to keep steady.

The pair of them were far too unsteady, clinging to one another until they were both on their feet. Kenta didn’t even want to think about what they looked like, arms wrapped around each other and very slowly shuffling against the wall as they attempted to join the flow of people around the ice.

The ice rink wasn’t very busy as it was a weekday evening, yet there was still a train of children holding on to the shoulders of the child in front as they weaved through the people around them.

“Those kids have done that three times already,” Kenta muttered, not needing to raise his voice with Hoeseung so close to him. Hoeseung didn’t have a clue what Kenta was talking about so it took him a few tries to try to explain. By the time Hoeseung understood, the children had whizzed past once more.

“They’re really good,” Hoeseung noted as he watched the children. The observation was short-lived as the pair of them were too close to toppling and they collapsed into the wall again.

Kenta couldn’t help but smile at Hoeseung as they both sagged against the wall, arms tightly wrapped around each other. The risk of falling now was minimal but it was still an excuse to continue holding on.

It was nice. It was much more than Kenta deserved. He wondered how long Hoeseung had been looking at him with eyes as soft as the ones turned on him now. Kenta wondered how long that the things he had been hoping for had really been there. He hadn’t allowed himself to hope that they could go on a date – it hadn’t stopped the fact that he had hoped all the same, but he didn’t give himself permission to imagine fanciful things like that – because Kenta was never that lucky. Whenever he hoped to pass auditions, or to get lucky somehow, he was disappointed without fail.

Kenta supposed things never turned out well because he became lazy by hoping for a miracle. He probably stopped trying so hard at auditions, and every day at work, and he had even stopped trying hard at trying to speak Korean. He hated every moment he spoke the language and how heavily the syllables coated his tongue and made it difficult for him to remember the words he had known all his life.

But these days, forcing himself to try to understand wasn’t such a chore all the time. When it came to Hoeseung, there was no end to the things Kenta wished to be able to say and understand. One thing he had hoped to hope for was within his grasp and maybe that was enough for Kenta to put some effort in.

They both decided to give up putting effort into ice skating. Neither of them had the talent and neither of them were making any progress the few times they were brave enough to attempt to slide unaided.

Once outside, the air was warm enough to thaw Kenta’s fingers against the bites of multiple falls. Before long he could withdraw his hands from the pockets of the jacket he wore and give light to the possibility that his hands might knock into Hoeseung’s and give them an excuse to exchange knowing looks and wait for enough privacy to clasp their hands together.

Kenta didn’t have the chance to accidentally nudge Hoeseung’s hand with his own because Hoeseung was suddenly pointing excitedly at a small building across the road. Initially it was hard to say what Hoeseung was pointing at because there was also a person juggling flaming clubs where Hoeseung was pointing.

“Are you hungry?” Hoeseung asked.

“Can I pay if I am?”

Hoeseung shook his head, smiling in that way that made the back of Kenta’s neck itch.

“If you want to pay you have to invite me on a date,” Hoeseung said, stubborn behind the good-nature of his expression.

Kenta realised he would have to let this one go. He nodded reluctantly. “Next time I will buy.”

“Good. But today it’s me,” Hoeseung grinned.

They were careful going past the juggler. Hoeseung made an exaggerated show of pushing Kenta to safety as though it would do much to help if the juggler’s clubs suddenly went astray. Kenta rolled his eyes and briefly grasped Hoeseung’s fingers in thanks and embraced him in a twirl and pulled him out of the way. Hoeseung made a show of gasping at this too.

“You saved me,” He said.

“I did.”

It was just a moment, but Hoeseung’s mouth grazed against Kenta’s cheek. Kenta was uncertain of what happened when Hoeseung had already stepped away and was holding open the door.

“Kenta?” Hoeseung prompted. “You must be even hungrier after you saved my life.”

Kenta quietly agreed and walked through the door. He was only surprised, that they could joke around like that in public. Kenta was already inside and the door was closing behind him. He would never know if someone had seen the two of them and thought anything strange of it.

Here inside the small restaurant it would be difficult for Kenta not to know whether anybody was thinking anything strange. Hoeseung held his hand tightly as they waited to be seated by the pretty waitress who greeted them with a fond smile as she emerged from the cheery pastels of the decor.

The waitress sat them at a table near the kitchens and seemed to be making a lot of jokes with Hoeseung as she gesticulated with her surprisingly muscular arms. Kenta smiled along even though he didn’t know what he was hearing. The waitress didn’t seem to notice and slapped Kenta on the arm, quite a bit harder than Kenta was expecting, and said something Kenta definitely didn’t understand. He smiled a bit but the waitress’s expression faltered.

“That friend is a foreigner,” Hoeseung explained.

The waitress clapped her hands and made a noise of understanding. “I see, I see. Did you come to Korea because of this man?”

“I didn’t,” Kenta said.

“Why would you ask a question like that?” Hoeseung asked, halfway between smiling and looking too embarrassed to smile about anything at all.

“I was curious,” The waitress shrugged. “I understand. I can’t even get my girlfriend to take a bus to see me.”

“Girlfriend?” Kenta asked. He didn’t think that asking something so innocuously would get such a stunned reaction. The waitress’s expression hardened and Hoeseung looked to be very careful about not breathing.

“Do you have a problem with that, Customer?”

“Not at all,” Kenta said quickly, “I–”

“This restaurant is a place for people to feel comfortable.” There was something of a wobble to the waitress’s voice. She was only young, and Kenta was mortified to have made her lower lip tremble as she held her arm out to point at a plaque on the wall near the kitchen. The plaque wasn’t large by any means and it hardly stood out amongst the already colourful surroundings, but the meaning was big enough on its own.

Kenta looked away from the small rainbow flag and hoped Hoeseung would be of some help. He wasn’t and only looked like he would soon require medical assistance if he didn’t breathe soon.

“This is a date!” Kenta said quickly as he pointed between himself and Hoeseung. “We have kissed before! I was just surprised that you talked about having a girlfriend so easily.”

The waitress sniffed and wiped her hands on her apron – maybe it was something to do if she felt awkward, or her hands might have been sweating. Kenta could relate to either of those reasons – before she spoke again. “It should be easy. It is normal. You shouldn’t be surprised by things because that makes it seem strange. I have enough of that outside, so this restaurant is a comfortable place. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Sorry,” Kenta said quietly. Kenta wasn’t the only one feeling reasonably chastised as Hoeseung offered an apology before ordering them tteokbokki and some kimchi fried rice to share.

“Why did you tell her we kissed?” Hoeseung asked.

“I panicked. What was I supposed to do?”

“You wouldn’t talk to me about the kiss for weeks,” Hoeseung groaned. “You only just met that woman and suddenly you mention it for no reason.”

“I didn’t know what to do. She told me off all of a sudden. Isn’t she your friend? Why didn’t you help me?”

“Friend?” Hoeseung repeated slowly. He frowned at Kenta and shook his head. “That woman isn’t my friend. We just met now.”

“But you were being so friendly with her.”

A bottle of water and two glasses thudded onto the table between Kenta and Hoeseung. The waitress was scowling down at them. “If you want people to be unfriendly you should go to McDonald’s.”

Kenta was about to awkwardly apologise, for what felt like the fifteenth time that day, when Hoeseung grinned up at the waitress and said, “I can’t eat McDonalds. He thinks I am too fat already.”

“I did not say that!” Kenta couldn’t help giving Hoeseung’s shin a kick under the table for good measure. Despite wincing in pain, Hoeseung saw fit to continue.

“He didn’t want me to wear his jacket because I would rip it.”

“Hoeseung, that’s not true.”

The waitress glared at both of them before telling Hoeseung to hold out his hand. She smacked the back of his hand sharply and the look in her eye told Kenta he was one word away from getting the same treatment.

“You are both annoying,” She grumbled. “Now I think you are both too comfortable.”

Kenta didn’t feel very comfortable. He was awkward about the whole thing. He couldn’t even talk as they ate the tteokbokki. Kenta tried to be content with licking the sweet spiciness from his lips after he had slowly chewed each mouthful of rice cakes and fishcakes. Hoeseung seemed to be comfortable, smiling serenely as he kept offering to feed Kenta mouthfuls across the table.

“Aren’t you going to have any of the rice?” Hoeseung asked after a number of rejections that were closer to rebuffs. It was a date, but today wasn’t as Kenta had imagined it to be.

“I’m not very hungry,” Kenta said.

“You said you were hungry,” Hoeseung retorted.

“I’m not hungry now. Not after –” Kenta had to stop talking quickly when he noticed the waitress approaching their table again. She was all smiles once more and that was more worrisome than if she had continued to be abrupt with them. Once happy that Kenta and Hoeseung didn’t have any problems with their food – and not necessarily concerned with the problems Kenta had about being told off for a misunderstanding – she moved on to the next table and Kenta could talk again. “She is scary.”

Hoeseung only laughed but Kenta was being serious.

“I can’t return to this place, Hoeseung,” Kenta lamented, still very seriously. “Why would you bring me to such a scary place?”

“Is this place too scary?”

“Much too scary,” Kenta confirmed.

“I will tell Haein not to recommend this place in future,” Hoeseung said with mock sincerity.

“Good,” Kenta said.

Kenta didn’t want to return to eat at this restaurant again, but he didn’t mind when Hoeseung suggested they use the inoffensive backdrop of colours for their contact photos in their phones. After setting a hideously adorable snap of Hoeseung giving a peace-sign as his contact photo, Kenta considered that one day he might like to return to this restaurant. It wouldn’t be so that he could be told off again for being surprised, but so that he could remember how terrible his first date with Hoeseung had been.

The evening hadn’t really been terrible. They had gone ice skating when neither of them could do it, and Kenta possessed a useless amount of pride that would likely continue to pose a problem. He couldn’t help that he found it difficult to accept constant kindness from Hoeseung. There was a debt accumulating that Kenta didn’t know how to clear.

Kenta was already living beyond his means just to house himself. This extra burden – the uncertainty of friendship as they danced around the cusp of something more – didn’t help Kenta much. Kenta felt the weight of Hoeseung’s kindness in every smile that stopped the air in his lungs, and every off-hand remark which could have been flirting as easily as torment.

Each step Kenta took was laden with the weight of the jacket he wore on his back.

More than being scared of the waitress in the restaurant, and how freely she could admit to having a girlfriend, and how stridently she could defend herself, Kenta was terrified of Hoeseung. He had been wary of getting closer to Hoeseung, unable to help but notice that Hoeseung was attractive and personable and easily lodged himself in Kenta’s mind. Even now, getting closer to Hoeseung was something that filled Kenta with trepidation, but losing the progress that had already been made, their grasps slipping and missing each other scared Kenta more.

Even if he carried this particular debt to his grave, Kenta didn’t want things to go back to the way they were before. He didn’t want to return to sleeping away his hours at the convenience store and staring at the ceiling for the night following another failed audition despite having to wake up early the next morning.

Kenta didn’t have much to begin with, but that must have been what made him greedy.

Riding on the subway together was much too reminiscent of the first time Kenta wore Hoeseung’s jacket. Only this time, Hoeseung wasn’t wearing Kenta’s jacket. The value of this moment was higher than the first and Kenta wouldn’t regret being unable to pay this back if the memory of Hoeseung’s arm against his remained.

Tonight the air was just as fresh as the first time the both of them emerged from the subway station and onto the street. Kenta already had the soft lining of Hoeseung’s jacket to warm him as he walked. Just like the first time, Kenta was hoping.

Their pace had slowed noticeably as they got closer to the corner where their paths split. When they should have parted, they lingered.

“Thank you for today,” Hoeseung said.

“Why?” Kenta asked. “I didn’t do anything. I even ruined the day.”

Hoeseung shook his head quickly. “Nothing can be ruined when you are around. Having you all to myself made today the best I have had in a long while.”

Kenta wanted to deny that much and tell Hoeseung not to say such silly things, but he felt coy. His cheeks were hot and there was a prickle of further heat at the back of his neck. “Me too. Spending the day with you made me the happiest.”

“Just that much made you happy?” Hoeseung asked. Kenta wondered if it was alright to imagine the pink tinge in Hoeseung’s face.

“You always make me happy,” Kenta said. Hoeseung’s response was a bashful scoff as he rubbed at the back of his neck and kicked pebbles across the ground.

“Do I always make you happy? Like when you said that you always want to kiss me?” Hoeseung asked boldly.

“Just like that,” Kenta confirmed.

“I said that we shouldn’t kiss until we had a date. We had our first date today. Do you think we could kiss at last?” Hoeseung asked quietly.

Kenta cast his gaze around. It was late. There was nobody around. There was smoke curling from the window of a nearby house but there was nobody close enough to be certain about Kenta stepping closer to Hoeseung, slotting their feet together and holding him close.

“Please.”

Hoeseung smiled at the quiet of Kenta’s plea. His smile was soft against Kenta’s mouth.

Kenta couldn’t help being so greedy.

“We are close to my flat. Do you want to come inside for some ramen?”

Hoeseung kissed him lightly again, another taste of Kenta’s greed before he smiled, sly once more. Kenta stood firm against the shiver down his spine and waited for the reply. He should have known better than to expect something worthwhile.

“You regained tour appetite so suddenly,” Hoeseung mused. “Isn’t it too late to eat?”

“Coffee, then.”

“Will you be able to sleep if you drink coffee at this time?”

“I can’t sleep anyway,” Kenta grumbled impatiently. It was useless to have pride here and he might be allowed to gain so much more than his pride if Hoeseung stopped being obstinate enough to allow it.

“If that is the case, I really shouldn’t let you become lonely if you are awake all night,” Hoeseung eventually said.

The convenience store was closer to Hoeseung’s home than to Kenta’s and it was irritating to have to divert their route to there of all places once some direct questioning found them both unprepared. Kenta avoided looking directly at the person who served them, deciding it was better not to pay too much mind to how obvious they were being about what they intended.

Kenta was spending all of his pride just to have this much. His entire life was in one room and Hoeseung said nothing of it when he was let into Kenta’s flat. He only commented on how dangerous it was for Kenta to have to climb crumbling stone steps each day, but once inside the dingy darkness of Kenta’s flat his mouth was only for Kenta.

There were no more jokes pretending not to know what the question was about. Hoeseung was gentle and careful, not at all like the quick slices of his wit that Kenta heard so often. Every millimetre exposed was another one lathed with the affection of Hoeseung’s mouth, and Kenta wondered how much of his life this would cost him.

It was nice to be treated so softly, but Kenta soon grew impatient with the marvelling over his rather unremarkable body. He was more hasty about undressing Hoeseung and becoming acquainted with the skin he had craved for long enough that his hands trembled with his desperation.

At Kenta’s prompting – wordless because his brain was too useless to conjure any words with meaning – Hoeseung was quicker with his progress and the aching need that thrummed through Kenta’s body was met with an almost reverent gasp of surprise. Kenta couldn’t even attempt to think about what it meant.

It was something like a dream. Life was being too good to Kenta by allowing him to have Hoeseung murmuring words that sounded nice despite not meaning much to Kenta. Kenta was distantly aware of needing to change the lightbulb in his room because he could barely appreciate the deep flush over Hoeseung’s body – raspberry sweet over Hoeseung’s chest – as he opened himself up cautiously. Kenta’s brain was hardly working at this point, but he could understand well enough when Hoeseung was grasping at Kenta’s wrist and pulling his hand closer.  

Before long Kenta was carefully pushing into Hoeseung and trying not to fall apart at how Hoeseung clung to him and his eyes darkened with the swell of their shared breaths. It was too soon and Kenta didn’t know what he was supposed to do aside from committing each exhale, each thrust, each tremble to memory.  

The moment was gone too soon and by the time Hoeseung had come, Kenta wondered whether this was something he would be allowed again. Kenta wanted to hold Hoeseung again and again and know that each day he had the comfort of Hoeseung’s skin to look forward to. He wanted more than this single time of Hoeseung sloppily kissing him through his orgasm, giggling into his mouth as they were both coming down from the high of it.

Hoeseung was reluctant to be dragged away from the futon to get cleaned up, but Kenta was more reluctant to let these moments go.

 

*

 

The occasions where Kenta had managed to get someone into bed in the past had never been like this.

Hoeseung was grinning, his eyes dark crescents that rose over the mound of the pillow. His hair was sticking up in every direction and he looked a bit worse for wear. Kenta could only imagine what he looked like himself after spending the night holding his breath in case he snored too loudly and keeping very rigidly to a mentally defined space on the futon.

“Did you sleep well?” Kenta asked.

Hoeseung wriggled a bit closer and slung his arm over Kenta’s waist.

“Nope. You move a lot.”

“Do I?” Kenta asked. He had specifically tried not to disturb Hoeseung too much. Whenever he drifted, he found himself alert at the slightest brush of pressure. It was an uncomfortable night, but he had hoped his efforts were at least enough for Hoeseung to get some rest.

“You do,” Hoeseung confirmed. “You were continually moving away from me. I was getting lonely.”

Kenta rolled over to face the other way.

It was embarrassing to hear something like that. In the past, if Kenta had ever been able to spend the night with a person, the morning after had always been a curter affair. Things tended to be business-like as they dressed and parted. He hadn’t ever slept with a person who said shameless things about wanting to get closer to him.

Hoeseung shuffled even closer and tightened the hold of his arm around Kenta. He was pressed right up against Kenta’s back as he said, “It would have been better to sleep like this.”

It would in no way have been better to sleep like that. A midnight heart attack would have taken Kenta if he had spent that much time with the firm heat of Hoeseung against his body. He took a deep breath before he twisted in Hoeseung’s hold.

“I think that you are trying to kill me.”

“Why would I be trying to kill you?” Hoeseung asked, biting back his own smile.

“My heart is beating too fast,” Kenta confessed. There was no point in pretending otherwise. They had been on a date and slept together already. Kenta had been doing a terrible job of hiding how nervous he was until now. He could at least admit too much without feeling too ashamed of the fact. Maybe now he wouldn’t have to try so hard to hide his feelings. He could put the impetus on Hoeseung to do whatever he wished with Kenta’s feelings.

It was difficult to tell what Hoeseung was doing with Kenta’s feelings as he grabbed Kenta’s hand and placed it over his own chest. Hoeseung said, “Me too. My heart is racing so fast. But you should do something that scares you every day. That’s why I talk to you so often.”

Kenta was aware that Hoeseung was talking, and he was saying something about running, and being scared, and Kenta was also aware of the drumming beneath his palm. It was early, so Kenta hoped he could be forgiven for not fully understanding.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Are you trying to be cute? Is listening to me saying that I like you that much fun?”

“That’s not it,” Kenta said. Hoeseung’s face split into a grin and he stretched his neck closer and pecked Kenta on the nose. His grin only grew wider when Kenta’s leg slung over his hip. Kenta frowned, very seriously, and said, “Are you not going to say it again?”

“Never,” Hoeseung replied just as seriously.

“That’s not fair.”

“I know,” Hoeseung agreed. “It really isn’t fair.”

Hoeseung seemed content to leave things at that, Kenta’s hand over his heart and Kenta’s leg over his hips. He kissed Kenta’s neck, just soft pecks at first. Before long Hoeseung was licking and sucking at the shallow indents of his teeth. It was too much and Kenta was already reminded of the night before.

He rolled onto his back and Hoeseung followed the movement, lying heavy and hard on top of Kenta as he moved down to nip at Kenta’s collarbones. Hoeseung’s hair was stiff with sweat from the night before and Kenta’s hands didn’t stop there as they roamed further, sweeping over Hoeseung’s back and shoulders. Hoeseung shivered when Kenta’s hands dipped beneath the cotton of his T-shirt and he skated his fingertips over the blistering heat of his skin.

Hoeseung lifted his head. His red lips shone with saliva. He said, “Shall we? Again?”

Last night had been enough for Kenta to be hooked on the taste of Hoeseung panting into his mouth, the sound of Hoeseung hissing as he tried to mute his mewls as he began to come undone, the feeling of Hoeseung quaking weakly with Kenta’s thrusts, the desperation in the very tips of his fingers as he scrambled for purchase against his climax.

Kenta wanted to see all those parts of Hoeseung again and again. He wanted to find all the places that made Hoeseung react, and he wanted to lie at Hoeseung’s side and have their skin press together in the most innocent way. He wanted so many different things. Like before, when he wished he had never kissed Hoeseung, he wished they had never slept together too.

Wishing never did much of anything. Now Kenta was stuck wanting more and more from Hoeseung.

Hoeseung was cautious with his touches as he stroked Kenta to full arousal. He was making a show of leaning over Kenta, showing a sliver of skin between his T-shirt and his boxers as he stretched, to fetch the condoms. He fumbled as he tore open a packet, murmuring assurances to Kenta before he could finally roll the condom onto Kenta.

As Kenta pushed fingers into Hoeseung, the motion slow because Hoeseung was still fiddling with the lid of the bottle of lube, he caught Hoeseung’s hisses with his mouth. It felt like being needed when Hoeseung gave up with the bottle to cling to Kenta. Even more so when Kenta’s hand encircled both of their erections and the gentle canting of Hoeseung’s hips grew more erratic.

“Please, Kenta,” Hoeseung groaned. Kenta shivered at the sound, almost hating the flash of pride jostled the back of his mind. It was early in the morning and Hoeseung’s face wore the sallowness of shallow sleep, and he was begging. He needed Kenta as much as Kenta needed him.

Kenta was careful as he tipped Hoeseung onto his back. He was careful as he pushed into Hoeseung, but he was more gentle with the rocking of his hips as Hoeseung met his thrusts with half-formed thoughts clinging as spittle on his lips.

Kenta loved Hoeseung. It was a thought that he sealed away behind his teeth and tightly pressed his lips together in case enamelled walls weren’t enough.

 

Unlike the night before, Kenta acquiesced to Hoeseung’s boneless pleas to simply lie together for a while. They woke up from their nap, stiff and sticky and Kenta would have to worry about washing his bedding properly another time. Cleaning off Hoeseung was a higher priority. Kenta tried not to think too deeply about yet more of Hoeseung’s cute sides as he dropped hisses on Kenta’s shoulders when they took turns washing, and brushing their teeth.

Hoeseung proudly placed his toothbrush into the cup with Kenta’s before his face turned hesitant.

“Is this alright?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Kenta asked. His face felt hot but he hoped he at least seemed to have some semblance of self-control. He was doing well. He wasn’t tearing through the streets, half-dressed, while whooping and cheering about how sure a sign this was that Hoeseung liked him.

“When I bought the toothbrush from the convenience store, you didn’t say anything,” Hoeseung said quietly. “I thought you were just ignoring it. But I want to leave this toothbush here.”

Kenta nodded. “Good. Leave the toothbrush here with me. I will look after it for you.”

“You’ll look after my toothbrush?” Hoeseung asked with the barest traces of a smile.

“Of course I will,” Kenta said. It was getting harder to pretend he was relaxed about attempting this conversation. “If I keep a toothbrush here for you it will be more comfortable when we sleep together.”

“When we sleep together? So this is just about sex for you?”

“I didn’t mean that!” Kenta grumbled. “When you sleep here. With me.”

Hoeseung grinned. “I know,” He said quietly as he leaned into Kenta’s side. “So, you want to sleep with me again?”

“Not right now,” Kenta said quickly.

“Obviously not now. In the future.”

“The future?”

“You know, tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. The future.”

“I know what the future is,” Kenta huffed.

Hoeseung didn’t say anything for a moment, a neutral expression passed over his face. Kenta kept watching, not inclined to say anything more himself. Kenta didn’t understand why Hoeseung was so determined to make him say something that was so obvious. He wanted every moment he could get with Hoeseung and he knew that he had been making that far too obvious quite soon after they met.

The morning only got more domestic with the pair of them making breakfast together. Kenta didn’t have much food in his cupboards or the fridge. Hoeseung didn’t comment on the lack of anything with any nutritional value, but he didn’t pass up the opportunity to ask how Kenta managed to burn rice in the time Hoeseung had been back to the convenience store. Kenta couldn’t retort because he was mostly wondering how to approach the question of why Hoeseung had bought so much food.

Hoeseung set Kenta to work chopping courgette, radish, potato, and onions, as he decided that he was going to fry the pork he had bought. Standing beside Hoeseung and working away in the kitchen felt too comfortable too soon, and Kenta secretly took pleasure in how wonderful it would be to live like this every day.

The pair of them ate the jjajangbap together. Hoeseung kept mentioning how much better the taste would have been if Kenta hadn’t burnt the rice. The only thing Kenta could do in response to that was steal a mouthful from Hoeseung’s spoon and say that it tasted fine to him. Hoeseung smiled bashfully and shoved at Kenta’s shoulder.

They had both made a point about the fact that having sex in the future wasn’t an immediate thing, yet Hoeseung didn’t manage to leave without taking Kenta’s cock into his mouth and swallowing around his release.

“What about you?” Kenta asked, feeling oddly dazed, as Hoeseung kindly tucked him back into his trousers.

Hoeseung shook his head with a smile. “There isn’t enough time. You were just kicking me out of your house,” he said, trying to clear his throat against the rasp. He seemed unwilling to stop touching Kenta despite mentioning the time himself. Kenta had to head out very shortly to work an extravagant birthday party over the evening. He liked it though, this lingering around as Hoeseung ran his hands up and down Kenta’s chest.

“But I need to go and brush my teeth again,” Hoeseung added quickly. “I can’t talk to my mum like this.”

 

*

 

Kenta and Hoeseung didn’t see each other as much as Kenta had hoped. Every morning and every evening his eyes were drawn to the toothbrush which lived alongside his own. It didn’t get as much usage as Kenta had hoped it would have when he noticed it in Hoeseung’s hands, bundled alongside the condoms, on the first night Hoeseung slept over.

Hoeseung didn’t come to the convenience store as much as Kenta had hoped. They still messaged one another well into the small hours of the night, and all of the other hours too, Kenta supposed. But he missed Hoeseung’s presence the most when it rained.

Napping was something that Kenta couldn’t focus on anymore and he even found himself walking through the rows of shelves and reorganising the stock just to have something to do with his idle hands. Irregular messages complaining about how Hoeseung’s superiors were making him work even more overtime than usual weren’t the same as having Hoeseung leaning across the counter and flashing his dimples in smiles as constant as the sun in the sky.

Once, Hoeseung did call Kenta though. There was hardly a chance of being caught, as usual, because of the lack of customers, but Kenta almost missed the call because he was staring at the picture that lit up his phone screen.

“You answered,” Hoeseung said, a soft chuckle at the back of his throat as he spoke into the phone. Kenta’s lips curled into a smile just from that much.

“I answered,” He confirmed.

“You took so long. I thought you had forgotten about me,” Hoeseung murmured. His words were already slurring and Kenta closed his eyes to try and concentrate on the soft cadence of Hoeseung’s voice over the hush of rain spattering on the window panes.

“How could I forget you?”

“It has been a long time.”

“It has been a long time. A very long time. I have missed you,” Kenta said quickly. His chest warmed at the cheery hum from the other end of the line. It had been too long. There had been meetings between them very occasionally, but their schedules never aligned for them to sleep side by side or eat a meal together.

“I miss you too,” Hoeseung sighed. “It is raining.”

“I know,” Kenta said.

“I was asleep, but the rain woke me up,” Hoeseung said. It sounded like he was already falling asleep again. It was nice to hear his voice so soft and scratchy, even if it meant that his consciousness was slipping away from Kenta.

“I’m glad.”

“I am going to fall asleep at work tomorrow. My section chief is going to ream me.”

“What does that mean?” Kenta asked as he turned cans of soup so that the labels all faced the same way.

“I will be in trouble,” Hoeseung yawned.

“Your boss should be in trouble,” Kenta said. “Why do you have to work so hard so that he can look good?”

Hoeseung made a noise that could have been a laugh as easily as another yawn. He murmured something but Kenta couldn’t make any sense out of the sounds. It would have been so much easier if he was there beside Hoeseung, if he could press his ear to Hoeseung’s chest and listen to the slow steadiness of his heart it wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t quite understand what was being said.

“Can I see you soon?” Kenta whispered. Hoeseung exhaled but he didn’t even make a sound that could be mistaken for talking this time. “Good night, Hoeseung.”

It was selfish, and it was a waste of Hoeseung’s phone minutes, but Kenta stayed on the line for a bit longer. He couldn’t hear very much as Hoeseung’s phone must have fallen away from his ear, but there was the occasional snort and snuffle that Kenta strained his ears for against the distant rushing of wind and rain.

 

*

 

It was raining.

It was night-time.

Rather, the clock told Kenta it could still be considered night time even if the light refracting through the droplets on the window said otherwise.

There were no customers in the convenience store. Kenta felt his eyelids pulling down, ready to send him off to sleep before he was ready. He still had a shade over an hour left of his shift and it didn’t look as though the rain would let up before then. The rainy season was still going strong but the sky was starting to brighten, the ferrous sky tinged with the rising sun that pushed through the downpour. 

Just the evening before, his sister had sent him a picture of the sunset she saw on her way home. That hadn’t even been too long ago and now he was watching the rising sunlight fade in through the gaps of the buildings on the other side of the street.

The time since his shift began was long behind Kenta but he had felt the tick of every second in his chest. He was expecting a call, even though he shouldn’t have been and it was unprofessional of him to intend to use his phone during work hours. He didn’t care about what he should and shouldn’t have been doing.

He had waited for Hoeseung before. So many times before now he had waited for Hoeseung to approach him, and to talk to him, and to smile, and to make Kenta mind his failings a little bit less. He couldn’t remember the last time he went to an audition. He hadn’t told his sisters that when they called him because it seemed like it would invite requests to return home which had been supressed until now. All this time Kenta had been trying this hard for no reason, struggling with three jobs just so that he could be too tired to properly practice, have to choose between eating a meal and booking a practice space for a few hours, only to fail whatever auditions he had been able to make it to. 

It was raining and Hoeseung had promised to call Kenta. There wasn’t even a choice to be made here. Serving customers and keeping things running was no priority when Kenta was waiting for the call. Kenta would have remembered to expect the call without the rain. He wondered whether Hoeseung had forgotten even with the roiling of the clouds raining down.

Eventually it came.

The buzz was sudden enough that Kenta jolted to sit up straight as his phone vibrated on the counter.

“Kenta!” Hoeseung cheered when the call connected. Kenta’s chest felt stuffy. He felt guilty for doubting that Hoeseung would call him. He had been doubting the legitimacy of the promise despite knowing that the desire to talk was mutual. He smiled and hoped that Hoeseung would only hear the happiness in his voice.

“It’s raining, Hoeseung,” Kenta said. “I want to see you.”

“Me too,” Hoeseung agreed merrily. “I miss you too! You should come here with me!”

“I am still at work.”

There was a loud gasp before Hoeseung – clearly wearing a sloppy smirk on his face. Kenta could see it in his mind’s eye – said, “That is so bad. You knew you would be at work when we made the promise. I was wondering why you wouldn’t call me.”

Kenta didn’t want to explain that he didn’t want to break the rules entirely. Receiving a call was slightly different to making a call. When receiving a call, it would have been an emergency that Kenta would need to be notified about. When making a call, it was Kenta’s own selfish boredom that he would have to take responsibility for. It was too much trouble and it was better to exercise his patience by making himself wait for Hoeseung’s attention to come to him.

“I only have an hour left,” Kenta said, because it was easier than explaining his self-escapist logic. But Hoeseung made an unhappy sound.

“I don’t know if I will last an hour. Haein and Sohee are sort of kissing and I might have run away by then.”

“Why would you run away?” Kenta asked. He wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly about Haein and Sohee… kissing? Kenta had assumed that the going out and getting absolutely smashed was part of a workplace ritual but if Kenta was in the same position he wouldn’t have wanted to kiss anybody in front of his colleagues. But it was nice, he supposed – as long as Haein was who Sohee had been pining over the whole time. Kenta had never built up enough nerve to ask about that – that they could be so comfortably romantic.

Hoeseung had been murmuring something that Kenta hadn’t been listening to at all. He interrupted and pretended that he hadn’t lost his focus. “Just wait one hour, please.”

Hoeseung grumbled but it sounded like he agreed right before whining about how he had forgotten what Kenta looked like.

 

Kenta had been quick about the change over. The poor soul working the morning shift was barely through the door before Kenta had clocked out and was sprinting through the puddles in the street. The pub where Hoeseung’s company had gathered wasn’t terribly far, but it was much too far for Kenta to have promised to be with Hoeseung quickly. The remainder of his shift had eaten up the promised hour before they met. It was another half hour of brisk walking before Kenta reached his destination.

He was wary of walking in and having to search through dozens of drunk people to find his target so, uselessly huffing for breath, Kenta called Hoeseung’s phone. It was not Hoeseung who answered.

“Takada Kenta-ssi?”

Kenta hesitated before asking, “Is this Haein-ssi?”

“You remembered me?” She asked. Haein sounded extremely pleased with the fact and kept talking to somebody else in the background before she eventually returned her attention to Kenta. “This picture is prettier than the one before. You knew this picture was being taken?”

It took a moment before Kenta realised that Haein was talking about the contact photo in Hoeseung’s phone. “That’s right. Is Hoeseung there?”

“How boring. You’re asking about him already?”

“Yes? I’m sorry.”

Haein huffed a bit before spending even longer muttering to somebody next to her. The rain was lighter now but it was still soaking through the seams of Hoeseung’s jacket. It was no coincidence that Kenta had worn the jacket today, only, he had hoped he would have been indoors much quicker and his lack of hood or umbrella wouldn’t have been such an issue.

“Can’t you see Hoeseung?” Haein asked eventually. “He said he went outside to wait for you.”

“It’s raining,” Kenta said.

“Is it? But he left a while ago. Maybe he went to buy something.”

That didn’t fill Kenta with confidence. He intended to keep Haein on the line as he searched for Hoeseung, but he found Hoeseung very quickly. He looked almost peaceful, snoozing outside the pub, his clothes and hair already saturated from the rain.

Kenta shook Hoeseung’s shoulder quickly. It was ridiculous that nobody had thought to try and wake Hoeseung up before and have him move somewhere more sheltered, but Kenta wondered if he would have done so if he was a passer-by. He probably wouldn’t have, he decided. It was enough hassle shoving at Hoeseung and telling him to wake up as someone he knew – if Hoeseung had been a stranger, Kenta would not have bothered.

Eventually Hoeseung grunted and stretched, knocking Kenta’s hands away. He was content to blearily mutter to himself so Kenta elected to make his presence known.

“You’re drunk,” He said. Hoeseung looked surprised to see him for a long moment before his face split into a wide grin.

“Kenta. I wanted to see you and now you are here.”

“I wanted to see you too,” Kenta said tugging at Hoeseung’s arm. Hoeseung only smiled more widely, his eyes crinkling and his cheeks dimpling as he swung their hands from side to side.

“You wanted to see me too!” Hoeseung announced.

“I did,” Kenta agreed through gritted teeth. Hoeseung wasn’t at all bothered by Kenta’s exertion, smiling as he slumped more thoroughly against the wall of the pub. After a terrifically strong pull from Kenta did nothing he decided to resort to blackmail. He said, “If you don’t get up right now, I will never kiss you again!”

Hoeseung gasped, exaggerating the expression and dropping his hand from Kenta’s. “Fine. If you don’t sit down right now, I won’t kiss you ever again.”

Kenta hadn’t seen that coming. So there was only one thing for it. He glanced around to ensure there weren’t too many people witnessing what he was about to do. It was Hoeseung’s fault for sitting beside a puddle in the first place. Kenta kicked as hard as he could at the puddle, splashing Hoeseung with a wave of gritty water.

Hoeseung got up quickly at that.

“What was that for?”

“You wouldn’t get up,” Kenta said. He was aware that he was whining but he was tired and annoyed. He just wanted to go home and relearn how to coexist with Hoeseung.

Hoeseung was still ineffectually wiping himself down as though the water from the puddle was any wetter than the water from the rain. “I can’t believe you did this to me! Kenta, come here. It’s your turn.”

“Please, no!” Kenta pleaded as Hoeseung scooped him up with solid arms. He clung tightly to Hoeseung. It was too late to deny that he was squealing and kicking his legs when he heard Haein’s voice calling out from nearby.

“How fun!”

“Please put me down,” Kenta whispered. He hoped that Hoeseung would understand not to drop Kenta on his head, but Kenta held on as a precaution until he felt Hoeseung’s grip slip slowly away from his legs.

Haein was draped all over Sohee who, as the shorter of the two, looked like she was struggling. Her ankles trembled and Kenta wondered why she had decided to wear such inconvenient shoes. Haein was talking, but Kenta couldn’t quite understand it until Hoeseung wound his arm around Kenta’s waist and said, “Haein wants to be carried too.”

“By you?” Kenta asked. Hoeseung shrugged, swaying into Kenta’s side. Haein was still talking but Kenta couldn’t listen to that. “Only me. Only carry me.”

“Only you?”

“Only me,” Kenta confirmed. Hoeseung smiled as he tipped his head onto Kenta’s shoulder.

“You’re really cute.”

“You the cutest,” Kenta mumbled.

Hoeseung shook his head and tipped his head up to look at Kenta. “I really love you, Kenta,” Hoeseung grinned as he leaned heavily on him. “I am so full of love for you. Every time I am around you, my heart sings. I love you, Kenta. I really, seriously love you.”

Kenta’s mouth was dry. Hoeseung’s eyes were still unfocused and he was struggling to carry his own weight, but he sincere in the way only a drunk could be. Kenta watched the twinkling of Hoeseung’s countenance and wondered whether this was something he could take to mean what he wanted it to mean. He would have preferred to be told he was loved at a more manageable time of day with a more sober cadence, but it was still nice to hear.

He wanted the meaning of the words to match the sound. He reached his hand up to wipe a clump of hair from Hoeseung’s forehead, dampened by the drizzle all around them as the dawn was creeping in. Kenta supposed that they knew each other best in the hours that were rarely worth counting.

Kenta loved Hoeseung too. He loved Hoeseung enough that his stomach ached from the effort it took not to say the words to Hoeseung all the time.

“Hoeseung,” Kenta whispered. The moment after the name stretched a shade too long and Hoeseung’s teeth disappeared behind the slow tightening of chapped lips.

“I hope you two aren’t kissing,” Haein called over.

Sohee was staggering under the weight of the woman on her back. Kenta wished she would at least take off her shoes and not risk death to blatantly. “Haein, stop moving so much.”

“You’re the one who is moving!”

“I’m moving because you’re moving,” Sohee grunted.

“I am only living because you are living, Sohee!” Haein cheered as she threw her hands into the air. Sohee staggered dangerously before she finally steadied herself.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you took off your shoes, Sohee?” Kenta asked helpfully. Haein, despite not being called Sohee, assumed the suggestion was for her and started wildly swinging her legs until one of her shoes sailed past Kenta’s head.

Hoeseung, apparently sober enough to be helpful stepped away from Kenta and drifted closer to the two women. “Sohee, take off–- Ah! What is that? Take off that jacket!”

Hoeseung stumbled over and nudged Haein until she slipped off Sohee’s back, giggling as she hobbled a few steps on one shoe. Hoeseung wasn’t concerned with Haein as he began tugging at the jacket Sohee was wearing. It was Kenta’s jacket. Sohee looked confused as she glanced over her shoulder owlishly as her arms slipped out of the sleeves.

“You can’t undress her!” Haein protested as she noticed what she had been pushed away from. She started tugging at the jacket too and swinging her foot at Hoseung’s legs, though she wasn’t achieving very much. “I won’t let you see Sohee naked.”

“I don’t want to see Sohee naked,” Hoeseung pouted as he pulled harder on Kenta’s jacket.

“Why not? She has an amazing body!”

“Haein, that is so sweet!” Sohee cried as she wound her arms around Haein’s neck.

“Stop pulling!” Hoeseung shouted, interrupting the ‘moment’ that Haein and Sohee were having. “This is the most important thing I own. If you rip it I will kill you!”

Hoeseung looked more likely to be the culprit if the jacket did rip but Kenta wasn’t sure how useful it would be to mention that while Hoeseung was exerting a terrific amount of strength against both Haein and Sohee.

“It doesn’t even fit you!” Haein shouted. She stumbled backwards and knocked Sohee down with her when Hoeseung forlornly dropped the jacket sleeve he had clung to so tightly. Hoeseung turned to Kenta sadly.

“Kenta, she stole your jacket. And she called me fat.”

Kenta sighed. This wasn’t very good. He approached Haein cautiously, because he had no doubt that her aim when kicking might suddenly improve when Kenta strayed too close.

“Haein-ssi, could you please return my jacket to me?” Kenta asked softly. “I would quite like Hoeseung to wear it.”

“But it doesn’t even fit him,” Haein pouted. “It looks much better on Sohee.”

Kenta disagreed. The jacket might have been snug across Hoeseung’s chest once fastened, and he filled out the shoulders a bit too well, but Kenta liked that. It looked much better on Hoeseung than on anyone else. Kenta didn’t dislike Sohee wearing his jacket, it was mostly that Hoeseung needed the jacket more.

“Why don’t you give Sohee one of your jackets.”

Haein’s eyes widened and Sohee hooked her chin over Haein’s shoulder.

“Please, do that! I want something of yours Haein!”

“You can have anything you want,” Haein mumbled. That was more than good enough for Sohee why cheered happily at the proud flush on Haein’s face.

Kenta finally had the jacket and pulled it over Hoeseung’s arms. It was quite a task to stuff Hoeseung into the jacket while Hoeseung showed no signs of wanting to help. He kept smiling as he occasionally tipped his head forwards to drop kisses on Kenta’s cheeks. 

Once Hoeseung was finally wearing Kenta’s jacket, Kenta stripped off the jacket that he was wearing, the one Hoeseung had manhandled him into far too long ago, and coaxed Hoeseung into wearing it. It was time to go home at this point. After sort of confirming that there was nothing left inside the pub that belonged to Hoeseung, Kenta called a taxi. It was an extravagance that was necessary at this point.

When Haein and Sohee returned indoors it was just Kenta and Hoeseung waiting alone for their taxi. Even as they stood underneath the ledge, rivulets of rain diverted from the rooftop poured down and splashed back at the pair of them. 

Hoeseung was soaked through shivering underneath both of the jackets that were awkwardly layered over him. It can’t have been comfortable with his wet clothes bunched beneath two jackets but Hoeseung was smiling beatifically as he knocked his shoulder into Kenta’s.

“Do you like me, Kenta?” Hoeseung asked through his smile.

“Of course I do,” Kenta said, feeling too hot.

“I like you too,” Hoeseung said. “I like you a lot. I love you.”

Kenta nodded as Hoeseung tipped into his chest. He was practically asleep already in Kenta’s arms.

 

*

 

Kenta wasn’t sure why he was so unable to sleep. He knew the cause at the root of it, he just wasn’t sure why hearing the words had made him restless enough that even when he closed his eyes to Hoeseung’s face he could still hear the words in the deep of the darkness. Hoeseung’s voice was soft and warm but there was a scrape to the words, friction that made them stick like Velcro to Kenta’s insides. He tried to think of the words as something less adhesive to remove the words from his mind but that only made it worse.

All he could recall was the warmth of Hoeseung’s skin against his, a comfort that permeated deep into Kenta’s insides, a sharp scrape of his stubble that somehow tingled in places where Kenta wasn’t being touched.

He had to open his eyes. He couldn’t even see much but he could smell the sour alcohol on Hoeseung’s breath in slow puffs. It was good that Hoeseung could sleep so soundly. He had been working a lot and Kenta vaguely recalled a mention that Hoeseung would also have to go into work the next day even though he had been dragged out drinking with his superiors.

Kenta hoped that Hoeseung’s superior got his promotion quickly so that Hoeseung could stop doing so much overtime. It was selfish because it was only because he wanted Hoeseung to himself, to see him more often and hold him and monopolise him. He didn’t even want Hoeseung to see his family. Kenta was selfish. He tried to pretend that he wasn’t and everybody around him would compliment him on how responsible and hardworking he was, but he was selfish. He wanted to see Hoeseung for every moment that he could and he wanted Hoeseung to want the same.

He wanted Hoeseung to mean it when he said that he loved him.

Kenta probably loved Hoeseung. It should only be right that Hoeseung’s feelings were at least equal. Kenta was just uselessly hoping for things while Hoeseung had been the one to come and find him and try to coax a reaction. Kenta would give every reaction that he thought Hoeseung wanted. If he thought Hoeseung wanted him to fall for him, he could do that; if Hoeseung wanted him to want to look after him then that too was easy; if Hoeseung wanted him to be desperate and needy for each second, well, Kenta was already far beyond that point.

“I love you,” Kenta whispered. He said it in Japanese. Even in the dark he was too much of a coward to be truly honest. It was bravery to open his mouth at all. He doubted that Hoeseung didn’t know what it meant. He was glad that he didn’t have to find out for a few more hours, that Hoeseung was snoring soundly and his ears were blocked with the sounds of his own light snores.

“Do you love me? I really, really love you, Yoo Hoeseung,” Kenta said, a bit louder, hopefully more unintelligible to the man sleeping beside him. “I wish that I didn’t love you, at least not until I knew whether you actually feel the same or not. I hope you do love me, though. It is a secret but I will keep hoping that you love me every day until it comes true. I won’t ask anything else of you if you can let me be this selfish.”

He was too loud. Hoeseung stirred. He even opened his eyes and stretched out towards Kenta. He groaned loudly and rolled over to snore even louder. Kenta watched the shape of his back for a few long moments until his lungs were burning. Slowly, slowly, he exhaled.

He got up and carefully made sure that Hoeseung was still under the covers. He went to pour himself a glass of water and drained it all in one go. He poured himself another glass. He was far too restless to sleep.

He had a closing shift at the café so he wouldn’t have to wake up too early, but Kenta wondered whether he would be able to get any sleep at all. He would have to make Hoeseung leave quickly when they were properly awake, maybe after they had talked about things, and try to get some sleep in the few hours afterwards. For now he needed to go out.

Kenta’s hand faltered when he nearly grabbed Hoeseung’s jacket. He wouldn’t wear it. He put in his own jacket that was hanging next to it, old and faded from age. It was comfortable and it still kept him warm when he needed to go out, even if the smell was reminiscent of Hoeseung. He slipped his shoes on and was quiet when he left his flat.

He wasn’t normally this nervous. He shouldn’t have been feeling so exposed from words that might have carried no meaning at all.

Kenta wished that he smoked. Instead he had nothing to do but walk around for a while.

The air was refreshing but Kenta knew that it would get to be too much after a while. The rain had stopped for now and each step Kenta took was sodden with droplets of the last rain. There were a few cars that passed, wheels squelching on the asphalt, and it was more peaceful than the sounds Hoeseung was making.

His breath came out in citric-tinged puffs whenever he passed underneath a streetlight and the breeze that felt like it had cleared some of the more unnecessary thoughts from his head was soaking through his hair and chilling him even from his scalp. When he began to shiver, he turned on his heel and returned home at a brisker pace.

Hoeseung was still soundly asleep when Kenta returned. He wasn’t in the middle of some extended delusion. It was at least partway real and Kenta wasn’t riling himself up over nothing.

He stripped back down to his pyjamas and crawled into the futon, still shaking from the cold, and stuck as close to Hoeseung’s back as he could. This was enough for him to be able to drop off.

Kenta wasn’t sure when it happened, but after he woke, Hoeseung was walking around Kenta’s room, very naked and not nearly as hungover as Kenta would have expected after the state he had been in last night.

“Get up,” Hoeseung said quietly. His voice was right in Kenta’s ear, soft and warm as it contrasted with the dull thumping of raindrops splatting as they scattered on the window, and Kenta couldn’t help but flinch at the sound. He thought he had a few more moments to not have to think about anything, but he had been caught. Hoeseung was crouched in front of him, giving him a bit too much of an eyeful for the time of day. “Get up, get up!”

“Are you happy?” Kenta asked foggily. It wasn’t quite the question he had meant to ask but Hoeseung had seen his mind more addled than this before. He rolled up and rubbed at the dryness of his eyes. Hoeseung’s hand came to cup his face and he pecked Kenta on the nose.

“Of course I am happy,” Hoeseung declared, his voice rough now that he was speaking at a more normal volume. “Are you happy.”

Kenta supposed that, aside from some of the more pressing matters of his mind, he was happy. He nodded.

“You’re cute.”

“Thank you,” Kenta said awkwardly.

It was nice to hear that he was cute, he supposed, because an obvious alternative to being cute would be existing as some hideous monster who Hoeseung wouldn’t want to touch. But even now, moments after waking, there were other things that he wanted to hear. And, maybe it was because he was still tired and most of his brain cells were still resting, he really wanted to hear the thing that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Last night,” Kenta said, his face already heating beneath Hoeseung’s palm as he tried to look away.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember what you said, Hoeseung?”

Hoeseung curled his legs underneath himself and shuffled closer, both of his hands now at Kenta’s jaw. “I’m sure that I said lots of things, Kenta.”

“Lots of things?”

Hoeseung nodded. “Lots and lots of things.”

It wasn’t the best of starts. Kenta wondered how desperate he was for this. He wondered whether defining it would be more precious to him than leaving things be and hoping that he got what he wanted before long. He was desperate enough that he would chance losing this.

“Last night, you said you love me.”

Hoeseung’s expression didn’t change. He had an almost serene smile considering he must have caught a chill and should have been suffering the effects of a hangover. This wasn’t real.

Hoeseung nodded and he leaned closer and, sour breath and all, licked into Kenta’s mouth slowly. This dream-world Hoeseung didn’t feel the effects of cold rain needling at him, the same rain that was tapping at the window as though to draw Kenta into real wakefulness, but Kenta certainly did as he shivered against Hoeseung’s mouth.

Hoeseung pulled away, grinning, and ran a thumb across Kenta’s lips.

“Hoeseung.”

“Kenta,” Hoeseung replied, as though this was something he could easily jest about.

“Last night, you said you love me,” Kenta repeated, because maybe saying it again would make it true as much as it might draw an answer from Hoeseung. He covered Hoeseung’s hands with his own and tried to pull them away. He wasn’t quite sure what was true or not. The confession, drunken or otherwise, could well have been a figment of a fever dream that was retroactively muddling his thoughts.

But he couldn’t move Hoeseung’s hands. They were firm against his face and Kenta wished that this wasn’t the most real part of the morning.

“Probably, you need to leave soon,” Kenta said, his voice croaking out of his throat in an ugly way that he wished that it didn’t.

“Why?”

“You can say something now? What about when I was talking just now?”

Kenta’s voice sounded too thick and this was worse than the croaking. At least before he only sounded tired. Now he sounded like he was going to cry – which he was, but Hoeseung didn’t need to know that if he wasn’t going to enlighten Kenta. He blinked his eyes rapidly and hoped that he only looked like he had something stuck in his eyes.

“What about when you were talking just now?”

Kenta was stupid, really, really stupid. It was better for Hoeseung to pretend this into nothingness if he had never meant the words. It was better for Kenta to play along even though he couldn’t. It was too difficult to even try.

It was raining and Hoeseung wasn’t saying anything like what Kenta wanted to hear. It was raining and Kenta couldn’t bring himself to say what Hoeseung wanted to hear.

“Please leave,” He said.

“Why?”

“Please,” Kenta said more firmly, doing his best to prise the hands from his face. “Leave.”

“Why?” His voice was also more pressured. The rain on the window was getting harder. If it stopped, maybe it would be easier to convince Hoeseung to leave. But none of this morning was easy.

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Why! Why! Why!”

As much as Kenta’s voice had surprised him, Hoeseung shouting back surprised him more. Even Hoeseung looked startled for a moment as he withdrew his hands and swiped at his eyes with the backs of his wrists. His jaw was tight when he lifted his face to look at Kenta again. Kenta wished the dream would end more quickly.

“Why should I leave?” Hoeseung asked, naked and angry. “I know what I said. And you’re not going to say it back to me? You’re going to keep telling me what I said and tell me to leave?”

Kenta wished that he had been born Korean. Or that he had at least lived with the language for longer. He couldn’t even cry properly because he wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to be crying about at this point. He rubbed at the warmth of his eyes and when he removed his hands, Hoeseung was smiling a bit differently to usual. His jaw was trembling and he was barely keeping the shiver out of the line of his shoulders and arms. He flexed his fingers and slowly brought his fingers into a fist once more. And then he pressed his fist into his forehead and whimpered softly and Kenta didn’t know what to do.

“Did you not want to hear that? Do you not like that I love you?” Hoeseung muttered.

“Why?”

At least now Hoeseung looked as though his was miserably sick and his head was thick with hangover. His eyes were bleary as he regarded Kenta. “What do you mean by asking me ‘why’?”

Kenta wasn’t even sure of that himself. But Hoeseung had said that he knew what he had said. Kenta was wondering whether he knew that Hoeseung had said.

“Do you want me to say it back?” Kenta hazarded.

“Now you’re going to make fun of me? Alright, I’ll go.” Hoeseung stood and started picking for his clothes among the pile near the head of the futon.

“Just a moment,” Kenta said.

“Just a moment? I already understand,” Hoeseung muttered. He seemed to be having trouble as he lifted up a shirt and decided it wasn’t his own. Kenta hoped that he wouldn’t find any of his clothes. He wanted Hoeseung to be stalled for a while longer while he tried to piece together his thoughts. He crawled over to where Hoeseung was grouching and grabbed onto his arm. Hoeseung flinched and very decidedly didn’t look at Kenta.

“Yoo Hoeseung,” Kenta said quietly, “I love you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means shut up. I don’t want to hear it,” Hoeseung muttered. His voice sounded muffled as though his mouth was stuffed with the clothes he was searching for. “Don’t say it. Don’t bother.”

Kenta tried not to be offended. He already knew what that meant.

“I love you, Hoeseung,” Kenta tried again. “Yesterday you were drunk, but today I am sober. I am telling you that I love you. I mean it.”

“What so my words don’t mean anything?” Hoeseung asked.

“That’s right,” Kenta said. What was he supposed to think when Hoeseung was spouting as many pretty words as he liked? Drunk people could near enough say whatever they wanted without consequences. Their words didn’t carry much weight because everyone knew that they were silly words. Hoeseung was acting as though he had spoken the most solemn words of his life and was misunderstanding all on his own.

“Do any of my words mean anything? I am leaving. Do you think I don’t mean that?”

“You can’t!”

Hoeseung was pulling on a shirt that definitely wasn’t his own and Kenta panicked. He tugged at the shirt, flinched when he heard the tear of a seam, but that didn’t matter much. He grabbed at the rest of the pile of clothes too, just in case, and yanked open the window. They were only one storey up, but the clothes looked quite pretty as they flapped onto the pavement, their descent growing less and less graceful as the rain saturated the fibres with each fat drop of rain.

“What are you doing?” Hoeseung asked.

“I’m sorry,” Kenta said, still staring out of the window at the falling rain. He was probably still asleep anyway. He wasn’t acting upon strange impulses. He was still in the midst of the sleep he had been craving.

“You’re seriously crazy.”

“I’m sorry.”

Even over the staticky sound of falling rain, Kenta could hear Hoeseung’s approach. He didn’t touch Kenta but he was definitely close enough to do so. “Why did you do that?”

“I’m sor-“

“Do you think I want to hear that?” Hoeseung asked. He was raising his voice once more. Kenta felt himself giving up. His shoulders were suddenly heavy and he sagged against the window frame. He could feel the rain spitting against his face. It was cold and he couldn’t blink quickly enough to keep the water out of his eyes.

“I love you, Hoeseung. My heart is so full of singing,” Kenta said. He jolted a bit when Hoeseung shoved at his shoulder.

“Look at me, please,” Hoeseung requested. Kenta did, but he made sure to look as though he wasn’t doing it only because he was asked.

“What for? That hurt.”

“ _That_ hurt?” Hoeseung asked incredulously. He was hugging his arms against his body, shivering. Kenta closed the window. It was a bit stiff bit the sound of it was a thud that muffled the spatter of water. Kenta looked back at Hoeseung who was half-smiling through his shivers. “You said it wrong.”

Kenta shrugged. “You’ve stopped crying.”

“How can I cry? I was so surprised! Suddenly, you threw it all out! Everything!” Hoeseung said, as though Kenta needed telling what he had just done. “What do you think my mum is going to say when I tell her that I have been going out with somebody so crazy all this time?”

“Going out?” Kenta repeated. He knew that he sounded silly, but he couldn’t stop latching onto silly things like that.

“Mum, my boyfriend threw out all of our clothes, what do I do?” Hoeseung in some apparent skit that he was enacting alone.

“Boyfriend? Is it that easy?”

“Mm. That’s right. I’m fighting with my boyfriend right now,” Hoeseung said nodded. “We’re taking a break until I have some clothes to wear. Just get me some of your old clothes to wear and we can really start our fight,” Hoeseung said. His eyes were still red but he sounded good-natured. As thought this was nothing and something all at once.

“How can you say that so easily?” Kenta asked. He was aware of how thick his voice was once more, but he didn’t think he had really stopped crying at all. “Do you know how much I have been hurting? Since a while ago I wanted to say how much I like you. I was so scared, Hoeseung!”

“I said I wanted clothes before we fight,” Hoeseung whined, flapping his arms about, halfway between reaching out for a hug and protecting whatever modesty he thought he had. He shook his head and sighed. “Is this my fault? You didn’t believe me first. And then you threw out the clothes!”

“Is it my fault then?”

“Yes,” Hoeseung said, exasperated. “You made me love you too much.”

That didn’t even make sense. It did make sense as a sentence, but the way Hoeseung was wielding the words was simply ridiculous.

“That’s stupid.”

“Huh? That’s stupid?” Hoeseung asked. He stopped flapping his arms and settled on holding them open before he curled them around Kenta gently. “My feelings for you are stupid?”

Kenta nodded against the warmth of Hoeseung.

“You too,” Hoeseung said quietly into the hair behind Kenta’s ear. “Your feelings are stupid too. You’re crying like this because you love me, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. It feels good knowing that you are crying like this because of me,” Hoeseung said, humming as he rocked slightly. Kenta swiped at his eyes over Hoeseung’s shoulder and sniffed, just in case he was getting snot all over Hoeseung’s back.

“You too.”

“What?” Hoeseung, his voice not sounding nearly surprised enough for him to pretend away his own tears. “You noticed?”

“Hoeseung, my neck is wet,” Kenta laughed damply. Hoeseung chuckled weakly.

It was still raining, heavily enough that the clothes outside the window were a lost cause by now, and Kenta loved the sound. He loved how the rain thudded so surely, off-tempo with both his heart and Hoeseung’s in sporadic beats against the glass of the window and the roof above. It was raining and Kenta hoped it would never be enough to wake him up.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I began working on this around the same time as 'In the Meantime' because of Hoeseung's amazing 'Western Sky' cover, and this ship sort of aligned with the thoughts of longing for someone when it rains (no idea why lol). if the characterisation of Kenta seems eerily like how I wrote him in 'In the Meantime' it is because I am lazy. I needed to get this out of the way so I can properly focus on ignoring the other 5 fics I am currently writing and may never get around to finishing.
> 
> Anyway, I have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/SEpupppupp) and it would be cool if we could talk there or something.


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